Backend Engineer

What is Spade?

Financial institutions process billions of transactions every day across cards, ACH, wires, and third party aggregators. But most of that data is difficult to use. Descriptions are inconsistent, merchant names don’t match, and categories vary by payment type.

Spade is a data and AI platform that turns messy transaction strings into structured, verified records — and gives teams the tools to act on it across authorization, attribution, analytics, and AI initiatives. Spade leads the market in terms of merchant coverage, matching accuracy, geolocation data, and speed of transaction enrichment. Customers such as, FIS, Bilt, Mercury, Stripe, alongside many other leaders in fintech and financial services, trust Spade's data to enable personalized rewards programs, accurate applied spending rules, precise analytics requests, and innovative AI-powered features.

Spade is a fast growing, Series B company backed by industry experts and top tier investors (including Oak HC/FT, a16z, Flourish Ventures, Y-Combinator, and Gradient Ventures). We’re a lean and execution-oriented hybrid team, passionate about building exceptional products for our growing customer base. We care deeply about diversity of background, experience, and opinion. We value empathy, curiosity, and passion, and strive to create an environment where individuals have autonomy and the ability to take ownership over their work.

The Opportunity

As a Backend Engineer at Spade, you'll own the APIs and data systems that sit at the heart of our enrichment platform. You'll work across the full backend stack — from the developer-facing APIs our customers depend on, to the data pipelines and platform services that power our data science team. This is a high-ownership role on a small team, where your decisions directly shape the performance and reliability of products processing billions of transactions.

What will you be doing?

• Collaborate on our technical vision to build a product customers love

• Develop and maintain low-latency, massively-scalable developer-facing APIs and a robust data platform supporting our data science team

• Design and implement systems that support the growth of the product and the company

• Debug production issues across all levels of the stack

• Bring a strong collaborative approach to deliver value to customers and internal stakeholders at Spade

What experience, skills, and qualifications are necessary? 

Must Have:

• 4+ years of experience building and scaling backend Python-based systems in fast-paced environments

• Proven capability with developing REST APIs and writing performant SQL

• Experience building using AWS infrastructure

• Experience building systems from scratch, making trade-offs, and executing autonomously in early-stage environments

• A customer-focused mindset, strong problem solving skills, and the ability to navigate ambiguity while delivering value to customers

• A collaborative mindset, the ability to be mentored, and a focus on your own growth trajectory

• Based in the US/Can (also open to NYC-based with ability to work out of our Flatiron office at least 2 days/week)

Nice to Have:

• Proficiency in Django

• Familiarity with data science and analytics tools such as Pyspark, Databricks and Delta Lake, and Hex

• Experience with cloud infrastructure and tools like AWS CDK

• Experience with transaction, merchant, and/or location data

• Experience and/or interest in fintech and/or data products

Why Join Spade?

• Be a cultural founder. As an early employee, you’ll play a meaningful role in defining and building our culture.

• Get in on the ground floor. We’re a small but well-funded team – joining now comes with limited risk and unlimited upside.

• Build the next generation of financial infrastructure. Our products will power the next wave of innovation in fintech, helping our customers deliver better, more transparent products and services to the consumer.

Benefits at Spade:

• Competitive Compensation. Data-driven salaries that reward performance and ownership.

• Meaningful Equity. Flexibility with early exercise and an extended post-termination options.

• Comprehensive Health Benefits. 100% paid medical, mental, dental, and vision premium option plus One Medical membership (for US-based employees).

• 401(k). Empowering you to invest in your future.

• Paid Parental Leave. 12 weeks of full pay for parents welcoming a new child into their home.

• Unlimited PTO. Take the time you need to unplug and unwind.

• Flexible In-Person Culture. NYC HQ (hybrid and dog-friendly) with remote opportunities for certain roles in US/Canada.

• Supporting you in and outside of work. Generous work from home stipend, company-paid lunches, Citibike Membership, and more.

Salary Range:

• At Spade, we view total compensation as consisting of salary + equity + benefits. We recruit motivated and high performing talent, and work to compensate people in line with the value they bring to our team.

• We aim to pay fairly and competitively, and consider a number of factors in developing compensation offers. These factors include years and breadth of experience, interview performance, market dynamics, and internal equity.

• The anticipated base salary range for this role is listed above (in USD).

Diversity & Inclusion at Spade:

Spade is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culture that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We believe that having people with different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives not only helps us build the best products for our customers, but also helps us be the best version of ourselves.