Founding Engineer, Financial Products

About Us:

Forage is building the modern payments stack that powers inclusive commerce. Our technology enables grocers, delivery platforms, and point-of-sale systems to seamlessly accept EBT payments both online and in-store. Beyond infrastructure, we’re helping SNAP EBT shoppers stretch their grocery budgets every week, making healthy food more affordable and accessible to the 42 million Americans on food assistance.

Backed by leading fintech investors, Forage is a fast-growing startup with a clear vision and real-world impact, feeding tens of thousands of families daily. Our team is made up of kind, driven individuals who take ownership, move quickly, and collaborate closely. We value humility, curiosity, and a shared commitment to making a difference.

We’re not just building payments infrastructure - we’re helping feed tens of thousands of families each day, and transforming grocery access for millions more. Watch our story and see why we do what we do.

The Role

We're looking for a Founding Product Engineer to help build the next generation of financial products for the millions of low-income Americans who interact with Forage.

Forage is the leading payment processor for regulated payments, starting with EBT. We've built the infrastructure that enables some of the world's largest retailers and delivery platforms, including Uber Eats, DoorDash, Gopuff, Albertsons, Dollar General, and 7-Eleven, to accept SNAP EBT payments online.

Now, we're building on that foundation to give consumers new tools to improve their financial lives.

As a Founding Product Engineer, you'll partner closely with our Product Lead to identify, prototype, launch, and scale new consumer financial products across the Forage app, online and in-store grocery checkout, and other emerging product surfaces. These products may help consumers save money, earn supplementary income, build and access credit, increase their purchasing power, and better manage their financial lives.

This is a highly entrepreneurial engineering role. You won't simply receive fully defined requirements and execute against them. You'll work alongside Product and Design to understand our users, identify opportunities, evaluate potential solutions, and figure out what we should build and how we can build it quickly and responsibly.

You'll be expected to move comfortably across the stack and take products from idea to production. One week you might prototype a new consumer experience; the next, you could design the backend services, APIs, integrations, or data models needed to bring it to life.

We're looking for someone who wants to be an early technical owner of an entirely new product area and who is energized by the opportunity to build 0 to 1 products that can meaningfully improve people's financial lives.

What You'll Do

• Build new financial products from 0 to 1. Partner with our Product Lead to rapidly turn customer problems and product ideas into prototypes, experiments, and production-ready experiences.
• Own products end-to-end. Take responsibility for the full technical lifecycle from architecture and implementation through launch, monitoring, iteration, and scale.
• Help shape the product, not just the code. Participate in product discovery, challenge assumptions, identify opportunities, and bring technical creativity to decisions about what we build.
• Move quickly from idea to customer. Prototype and ship early versions of products so we can learn from real users, validate hypotheses, and iterate quickly.
• Build across the stack. Work across consumer-facing applications, backend services, APIs, data models, integrations, and infrastructure depending on what the product requires.
• Develop intuitive consumer experiences. Build simple, trustworthy experiences for financial products that may otherwise feel complex or inaccessible.
• Integrate with financial and commerce ecosystems. Build integrations with financial institutions, fintech platforms, retailers, delivery platforms, and other third-party partners that power our products.
• Use data to improve what you build. Partner with Product and Data to understand user behavior, measure product performance, and iterate based on what we learn.
• Balance speed with trust. Make thoughtful engineering decisions in a regulated environment where security, privacy, reliability, and compliance are critical.
• Establish the technical foundation for a new product area. Make early architectural decisions that allow us to experiment quickly today while building toward products that can eventually serve millions of consumers.
• Help build the team. As an early engineer in this product area, help establish engineering practices, technical standards, and culture as the team grows.

What We're Looking For

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience, ideally with experience building consumer-facing products from 0 to 1.
• Strong full-stack engineering skills and the ability to independently build and ship complete product experiences.
• A product mindset you care deeply about the customer problem, not just the technical implementation.
• Experience working in highly ambiguous environments where the right solution isn't obvious and requirements evolve as you learn.
• A track record of moving quickly from idea to prototype to production while maintaining high standards for quality.
• Strong frontend experience with modern frameworks such as React and TypeScript paired with the ability and willingness to build backend systems.
• Experience designing backend services, APIs, integrations, and data models.
• Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including system design, testing, debugging, performance, and scalability.
• Ability to make pragmatic tradeoffs between speed, technical quality, user experience, and long-term scalability.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills and an ability to work closely with Product, Design, Data, Legal, Security, and business teams.
• High degree of ownership and comfort independently driving projects from loosely defined problems to measurable customer outcomes.
• Excitement about advancing food access, financial inclusion, and financial opportunity for millions of Americans.

Preferred Technical Experience

Experience with some or all of the following:

• Frontend: TypeScript, React, HTML/CSS
• Backend: Python, Django, REST APIs
• Infrastructure: AWS and cloud-native architectures
• Data: Relational databases, data modeling, analytics, experimentation
• Systems: Distributed systems, asynchronous processing, scalable APIs
• Integrations: Financial APIs, payments infrastructure, banking platforms, third-party APIs
• Engineering Practices: Automated testing, CI/CD, observability, monitoring, and modern development workflows

Experience in fintech, payments, ecommerce, consumer financial products, marketplaces, or another highly regulated consumer environment is a plus, but not required.

Our Offer

This role is Hybrid inNew York or San Francisco, we will consider remote within North America on a case-by-case basis. We define hybrid as 2-3 days in office.

Your base salary would fall within the bands below. Please keep in mind that the equity portion of your offer is not included in these numbers and represents a significant part of your total compensation.

• Expected salary range: $195k-$230kUSD base salary, plus equity and benefits. Depending on Experience
• Meaningful work that makes a positive impact on our society.
• 100% of Medical, Dental and Vision premium coverage for yourself and dependents.
• Enjoy regular team lunches at our New York or San Francisco offices, fostering collaboration and connection over great food.
• A fun and caring environment that prioritizes transparency, growth, and ownership.
• A talented, high-achieving, and humble team with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints.

Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries at our headquarters in San Francisco, California. Individual pay is determined by work location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

We aim to review every application within 4 business days of submission and provide feedback on each of your interviews within 2 business days of completion. If you don't hear from us, please reach out to your recruiter or careers[at]joinforage[dot]com directly to get an update on your candidacy.

Integrity & Fairness: To maintain a fair and equitable hiring process for all candidates, we require that interviews and exercises be completed without the use of AI-powered tools. We assess candidates based on their direct experience, judgment, and communication.

Please note: We are not engaging with third-party recruiters or agencies for this role. We kindly ask that you refrain from contacting us regarding recruitment services. Fees will not be paid for unsolicited resumes sent to Forage.

Please note: Forage is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants must have work authorization that does not require visa sponsorship now or in the future.

E-Verify Notice: Forage participates in E-Verify to confirm employment eligibility for all newly hired employees. Learn more by reviewing the E-Verify Participation Poster.