Backend Software Engineer

Self Financial•Austin, TX

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Self Financial is a venture-backed FinTech company focused on increasing economic inclusion and financial resilience by helping people build credit and savings. This position is on the Credit Card team, which builds and supports systems behind Self’s credit card products. Interviews are conducted in person at the company’s Austin, Texas headquarters. The role builds and maintains backend services and APIs that support the credit card experience across mobile and web platforms, with work involving integrations with third-party partners and platforms. It is suited to an engineer with a backend foundation who wants to grow their skills and ownership while learning from experienced engineers. The team works collaboratively, ships frequent releases, and prioritizes creativity, quality, learning, reliability, and security.

Requirements

At least 2 years of professional software engineering experience, including work on backend services.
Working knowledge of Python and a solid grasp of web application fundamentals.
Understanding of REST APIs and how backend services communicate with clients and other systems.
Comfort with Git and common collaborative software development workflows, including code review.
Commitment to writing reliable, tested, secure, and maintainable code.
Clear communication skills, ability to manage tasks independently, and willingness to ask for help when needed.
Applicants must be U.S. citizens or current green card holders; visa sponsorship is not available.
Successful completion of a background check is required.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Flask or FastAPI.
Knowledge of the credit card or payments industry.
Experience integrating third-party APIs or external partner systems.
Experience using agentic engineering tools such as Claude, OpenAI/Codex, or Copilot.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience with SQL and relational database design.
Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS preferred), containers (Docker), or message queues.
Curiosity and a track record of learning new technologies quickly.
Personal, professional, or open-source projects demonstrating backend skills.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain backend services and APIs using Python, Flask, and FastAPI, taking on increased ownership over time.
Implement REST endpoints for web and mobile clients, with attention to scalability and maintainability.
Work with PostgreSQL or MySQL to model data, write efficient queries, and contribute to schema and indexing decisions.
Build and support integrations with third-party partners and services, including data exchange, error handling, and monitoring.
Write clean, maintainable code and participate in code reviews.
Follow and help uphold best practices for testing, security, performance, and safe releases.
Collaborate with Product, Design, Frontend Engineering, QA, and the engineering manager to scope and ship user-focused improvements.
Debug issues, explore unfamiliar parts of the codebase, and develop an understanding of Self’s backend architecture.
Contribute to team rituals, documentation, and continuous improvement.