Check→
Software Engineer at Check in San Francisco, CA
Skills
Job Description
Building at Check
At Check, we make paying people simple. In doing that, we’re not just building our own business— we’re building payroll businesses together with every one of our partners. As the inventors of embedded payroll, we’re redefining how people get paid and making it easier for payroll businesses to launch, grow, and thrive. Check out the full story | Tune in.
Check is far more than just API infrastructure. We’re a springboard for building and scaling payroll businesses.
Our Team
Payroll is broken. Come fix it alongside a team that’s as passionate as you are! At Check, you'll use creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and grit to impact every business we build. We view problems to solve and jobs to be done as opportunities to contribute to the solution; we ignore conventional role boundaries in favor of the unique strengths and value each builder brings to our team and to our mission.
Join us if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and redefine payroll. Let’s simplify the complex, make a real impact, and create a better future for businesses of every size.
The Work
At Check, you’ll combine strong engineering fundamentals with a drive to build software that meaningfully improves how payroll businesses operate. Our platform powers the movement of money, tax calculations, and compliance workflows for thousands of businesses, and much of the work we do involves turning complex infrastructure into clear, reliable systems for operators and partners.
Our engineering team builds using cloud-native tools managed through infrastructure-as-code. We run a Python modular monolith that applies the principles of distributed systems while preserving the simplicity and ownership benefits of a mono-repo. Our systems rely on traditional HTTP APIs and durable asynchronous workflows to orchestrate everything from moving money to filing taxes.
In this role, you’ll work across a wide range of problems, building software that helps Check move quickly and better serve partners and internal teams. Some work will be part of larger engineering commitments, while other opportunities will come from the ever-evolving needs of the business: a partner request, an internal tool improvement, a workflow that needs optimization, or a product gap slowing things down. If you enjoy building context quickly, running at problems, and shipping useful things, you’ll do well here.
This role is ideal for someone with strong engineering fundamentals, high agency, and an entrepreneurial mindset. You might see yourself founding a company one day, or you may simply be energized by joining a growth-stage company where you can learn the business deeply while solving real problems across engineering, product, and operations. At Check, our engineers are close to the core of our business. This role offers the chance to see how decisions are made in a growth-stage company, and to develop the judgment that turns messy real-world problems into shipped software.
In this role, you will:
- Build and ship software that improves how partners, operators, and internal teams run payroll businesses on top of Check
- Contribute to longer term engineering objectives while also adding immediate value by solving small friction points that improve our product and workflows
- Take real ownership of your work from technical approach through implementation, rollout, and follow-through
- Learn how complex production systems operate, from money movement and tax filings to the internal tools that support them
- Work directly with engineers, product, and other teams across the company to understand partner and operator problems and develop practical solutions
- Develop strong product and engineering judgment by seeing how technical decisions impact partners, operators, and the business
- Build deep context across Check’s systems and workflows so you can recognize and get ahead of problems
- Work in the open by sharing ideas, asking questions, and communicating clearly through code, documentation, and discussion
- Readily receive feedback and mentorship to keep raising your own quality bar as an engineer
Our Stack:
- Python/Django for our API
- React and TypeScript for our frontends
- AWS and Terraform for our cloud infrastructure
- Postgres for our database
- Temporal for workflow orchestration
- GitHub
Tools for the job:
- Strong software engineering fundamentals, with comfort working across backend and frontend systems
- Proficiency in Python or Go; experience with Django, React, or TypeScript is a plus
- Experience building product features, internal tools, or systems that solve real user or business problems
- A high-agency, curious working style and excitement to learn and grow in a complex domain
- Ability to navigate ambiguity, ask thoughtful questions, and turn context into action
- Strong communication skills and a willingness to work closely with teammates and stakeholders across the business
- A track record of following through, moving quickly, and taking pride in shipping useful, high-quality work
Travel and Office Policy:
Building Together on Common Ground. The Check team is distributed across the US, and we have offices in New York City and San Francisco. While we embrace remote work, time together in person is where we do our best work. We offer ample opportunities and encourage employees to attend team offsites, events, and hackathons a couple of times a year! We expect all employees to attend our annual 3-day company retreat each spring.
For our in-office and hybrid employees, our offices are open all week. We provide meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the team hosts regular happy hours, game nights, etc.
What we offer:
For full-time employees, Check offers company-sponsored medical, dental, vision, short-term/long-term disability, and basic life insurance coverage, effective on their first day of work. We also provide stock options, flexible PTO and sick leave, up to 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for new parents, flexible return-to-work, 9 annual holidays, a 401k retirement plan, and a $100 monthly stipend for home internet and mobile phone expenses.
The actual annual salary for this role depends on each candidate’s experience, qualifications, and work location. Most new hires are placed near the midpoint of this range to ensure fairness with our existing team’s compensation.
- In San Francisco, NYC, LA, and Seattle, the expected range is between $166,500 and $183,150.
- For all other locations, the expected range is between $141,500 and $155,650.
We accept applications on an ongoing basis with no specified deadline.
Remote work at Check requires the ability to perform all responsibilities without distraction or disruption, while maintaining quality, effective communication, and productivity.
Check is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, provided they are consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Check is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process.
Check participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with Form I-9 information from all new employees to confirm that they are authorized to work in the U.S. Check does not use E-Verify to pre-screen applicants.