Sr. Staff Engineer, Frontend - Product Engineering

About Betterment

Betterment is a leading, technology-driven financial services company that offers investing and retirement solutions for retail investors and investment advisors as well as financial wellness solutions, including a 401(k) for small and medium-sized businesses. Our team is passionate about our mission: making people’s lives better. We’re headquartered in NYC and offer hybrid NY-based positions (three days/ week in-office).

 

About the role

As a Senior Staff Engineer specializing in frontend web technologies, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our engineering efforts. This is more than just a technical role, you’ll drive innovation, mentor teams, and set the direction for our frontend architecture to ensure we deliver world-class user experiences at scale.

The Investor Engineering Organization is at the heart of our mission, building the client-facing web and mobile applications that empower users to achieve their financial goals. As we continue to expand our product offerings, we need to experiment quickly, adapt to new challenges, and maintain a seamless, high-quality user experience. To make this possible, we’re evolving our frontend infrastructure, migrating to React and GraphQL, to create a modern, performant, and delightful experience for our customers. This transition is more than a technical upgrade; it’s an opportunity to redefine how we build, scale, and maintain our applications.

As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will play a crucial role in shaping our frontend architecture and engineering practices, ensuring we build scalable, maintainable, and high-performing applications. You will set the technical vision for our frontend ecosystem, guiding teams in adopting best practices for React, GraphQL, and modern web development. Working closely with engineering leadership, you will drive strategic initiatives that influence multiple squads while fostering a culture of technical excellence. Your mentorship will empower engineers to grow, ensuring our frontend stack evolves with developer productivity, maintainability, and user experience in mind. As a bridge between platform teams and product engineering, you will ensure our web and mobile applications grow together, balancing speed and flexibility with long-term sustainability. Most importantly, your expertise will help create a seamless, high-quality experience for our customers, where performance, accessibility, and innovation are at the forefront of everything we build.

This role is based out of our NYC office. Below we've reflected the base salary range we would offer for this position. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterment’s total compensation package for employees. 

New York City: $230,000 - $260,000

We offer a competitive equity package, health, dental and vision benefits, life and AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance, EAP, commuter and parking benefits FSA/HSA, and 401(k) with employer match as well as a flexible PTO policy. This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus.  For jobs based out of our NYC HQ, we require in office attendance Tuesday through Thursday, weekly.

 

A day in the life

• Mentor and empower teams by providing guidance on React, GraphQL, performance optimizations, and frontend engineering excellence.
• Set the technical vision for our frontend architecture, ensuring a scalable, maintainable, and high-performing application.
• Lead best practices in frontend development, influencing code quality, design patterns, and testing strategies across multiple squads.
• Collaborate with engineering leadership (Principal Engineers, Directors) to drive strategic initiatives and technical direction.
• Bridge the gap between teams, working closely with platform engineers to ensure our web and mobile applications evolve in sync.
• Advocate for developer productivity while keeping a strong focus on code maintainability, scalability, and high-quality user experiences.
• Be a champion for performance and accessibility, ensuring every interaction feels seamless, responsive, and inclusive.

 

What we’re looking for

• Deep expertise in React and modern frontend development, with a strong grasp of component-based architecture, state management, and performance optimizations.
• Experience working with GraphQL or a strong desire to dive into it.
• A track record of leading frontend architecture decisions at scale.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical direction across teams.
• A passi