Founding Engineer

Position: Founding Engineer

Department: Topline

Reports To: President, Emigrant Venture Partners

Employment Status: FT, Exempt

Office Location: Hybrid – Midtown, NYC

Summary:

Topline, an initiative incubated within Emigrant Bank, is reimagining access to capital for developers and SMBs stuck behind long payout cycles from large platforms (e.g., Apple, Google, government contracts). We provide daily access to confirmed but undisbursed revenues through a modern cash advance and lending infrastructure.

As our Founding Engineer, you will own the architecture and development of the platform from day one. You'll work directly with the founding team to ship product, set technical direction, and establish engineering practices. Over time, this role has a defined path to CTO-level ownership, depending on performance and company growth.

We are looking for a candidate who has both the entrepreneurial mindset and the engineering depth to build the foundation of Topline's platform and team.

What You'll Do:

• Build the core lending platform—application flows, underwriting engines, data pipelines, and disbursement rails.
• Own backend architecture, cloud infrastructure, and integrations with banking/fintech partners.
• Develop customer-facing interfaces and internal admin tools to support operations.
• Establish engineering processes, coding standards, and security practices.
• Collaborate with product, compliance, and risk to implement KYC/KYB, AML, and other regulatory systems.
• Hire and lead the first engineers, evolving into a leadership role as the team scales.
• Partner with the founders on technical strategy, roadmap, and execution.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

Technical Depth:

• 5+ years as a full-stack or backend-heavy engineer, with strong proficiency in infrastructure, APIs, and data architecture.
• Skilled in cloud platforms (GCP), relational & NoSQL databases, and scalable system design.
• Capable of building production-grade fintech products end-to-end.

Leadership & Management:

• Experience leading projects or small teams in high-growth environments.
• Strong communicator who can work cross-functionally with non-technical stakeholders.
• Interest in scaling into a people-leadership role, including hiring, mentoring, and team-building.

Mindset:

• Thrives in 01 environments with ambiguity, speed, and ownership.
• Entrepreneurial drive—whether as a founder, side-project builder, or early startup hire.
• Product-driven thinker who balances speed with long-term scalability.

Fintech Bonus:

• Familiarity with payments, lending workflows, or embedded finance APIs (Plaid, Alloy, Synctera, Modern Treasury, etc.).
• Experience with regulated environments (security, compliance, AML/KYC).

Qualifications:

• 5+ years as a full-stack or backend-heavy engineer, with strong proficiency in infrastructure, APIs, and data architecture.
• Skilled in cloud platforms (GCP), relational & NoSQL databases, and scalable system design.
• Capable of building production-grade fintech products end-to-end.

• 01 Opportunity: Be the founding engineer at a fintech venture incubated with a bank, tackling a multi-billion-dollar market.
• Massive Impact: Your work directly empowers indie developers and SMBs to access capital faster.
• Growth Path: This role is designed to grow into Head of Engineering / CTO, based on performance.
• Ownership: Competitive equity + compensation package.
• Hybrid NYC Team: Work closely with the founding team while retaining flexibility.

The job description outlined above is considered a core list of job duties/requirements. This document should not be considered a complete or comprehensive list. The incumbent assigned to this position is required to perform the duties listed above. The incumbent is also expected to adapt to changes and/or additions as needed. Nothing contained within this document is intended or shall be construed to create or constitute a contract of employment between any employee or group of employees and Emigrant Bank and its Subsidiaries. Emigrant Bank and its Subsidiaries retains and reserves any and all rights to change, modify, amend, add to or delete from any section of this document as it deems, in its judgment, to be proper.