Dots — Senior/Staff Engineer

Dots — Senior/Staff Engineer

Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA · New York City, NY Compensation: $200,000–$280,000 + 0.4%–0.8% equity Hiring count: 4 Visa sponsorship: Yes — H-1B, O-1, OPT Reports to: TBD

About Dots

Dots is building global payments infrastructure for the future of work — a developer-friendly API that lets businesses pay their contractors in just a few lines of code. The platform already moves $1.5B a year to more than 1 million payees. YC-backed.

Founded: 2021 | Team size: 11–50 | Stage: Series A Industry: FinTech Website: dots.dev Offices: New York, NY (494 8th Ave) · San Francisco, CA (1501 Mariposa St)

Why Candidates Should Join

• Real scale from day one: Core systems already move $1.5B/year to 1M+ payees, and are being scaled as usage accelerates.
• End-to-end ownership: Own critical infrastructure end-to-end and help shape technical direction as the company grows.
• Early-stage upside: Series A stage with strong cash comp ($200K–$280K) plus meaningful equity (0.4%–0.8%).

Intake Call Summary

• No intake transcript or written summary was present on the role page (intake video only). Request from Contrario if needed.

The Role

Senior and Staff Engineers to own critical payments infrastructure end-to-end and help shape technical direction as usage scales.

What You'll Be Doing

• Design and build scalable, production-ready backend systems for high throughput
• Move fast and build systems that may be scrappy, iterating as the company grows
• Own critical infrastructure end-to-end and drive technical direction

Tech stack: React (frontend), Python (backend), AWS, ECS; GitHub, Linear, Slack, Notion

Requirements

• You have 7+ of experience designing and building scalable production ready systems
• You are able to move fast and build systems that may be scrappy
• You have worked with large amounts of data and designing scalable backend systems for high throughput
• You have a track record of launching and iterating on apps or large software projects

Green Flags

• FinTech and finance experience
• Experience from traditional finance companies (Bloomberg, JP Morgan)
• Been at a startup around Seed/Series A for 3-4 years
• Experience from companies growing quickly like Stripe or Ramp
• Understanding fintech and being development forward

Red Flags

• Only worked for random creative agencies
• No startup experience

Role Details

• Location: San Francisco, CA · New York City, NY
• Work policy: In-person
• Compensation: $200,000–$280,000 + equity
• Visa sponsorship: H-1B, O-1, OPT
• Employment type: Full-time

Screening Questions

• None provided on the role page.

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Phone Screen — Initial phone screening. Stage 3 — Virtual Technical Screen — Pair programming, backend-heavy build from scratch. Stage 4 — Virtual Systems Design — Work together through a problem. Stage 5 — On-site — On-site interview if take-home is successful. Stage 6 — Offer Extended Stage 7 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

FinTech / high-growth startups — Stripe, Ramp, Brex, Plaid, Robinhood