---
title: 'Software Engineering Manager, Data at Kard Financial, Inc.'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineering-manager-data-kard-financial-inc-remote-k65thw4cq40f'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Software Engineering Manager, Data at Kard Financial, Inc.

- **Company:** Kard Financial, Inc.
- **Location:** Remote
- **Compensation:** $180k–$220k
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-09-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/kardfinancialinc/jobs/4730995005

## Job description

Kard is building commerce media infrastructure that connects financial institutions, financial-services platforms, and merchants through data and merchant-funded rewards. As our reach expands, we are building for a step-change in scale, and for opportunities ranging from more relevant rewards and marketer intelligence to new commerce and distribution models.

## About the Role

As Software Engineering Manager, Data, you will lead a 12-person multidisciplinary team spanning data engineering, analytics engineering, data science, machine learning engineering, and data support. Together, these functions own the systems and workflows that move, model, analyze, and operationalize Kard’s data, while supporting both customer-facing product development and the day-to-day needs of our go-to-market teams.

Reporting to the Director of Data & Platform, you will have significant autonomy to shape the team, set technical direction, and determine how we invest across platform development, product integration, automation, and stakeholder support. This is a technical management role: you will not necessarily write production code every day, but you should be able to evaluate architecture, review code and technical designs, guide implementation decisions, and contribute directly when useful.

## Responsibilities

- Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary team across data engineering, analytics engineering, data science, machine learning engineering, and data support.
- Set the technical direction for Kard’s data platform, improving its scalability, reliability, maintainability, and usefulness across the organization.
- Increase automation and self-service while reducing manual workflows, recurring operational work, and unnecessary touch points across the Data team.
- Partner with Engineering and Product to integrate data, analytics, and machine learning capabilities into Kard’s products and production systems.
- Ensure Kard’s go-to-market teams have timely access to accurate, actionable data, while turning recurring requests into durable and scalable capabilities.
- Establish clear priorities, ownership, and delivery practices across a portfolio that includes platform investments, product work, analytical needs, and operational support.
- Guide architectural decisions and technical tradeoffs across data pipelines, analytics systems, production models, internal tooling, and data services.
- Build a healthy, accountable team through clear expectations, direct feedback, career development, thoughtful hiring, and strong collaboration across disciplines.

Desired Skills

- Experience managing a technical team working across data engineering, analytics, data science, machine learning, or related software engineering disciplines.
- The technical depth to assess system designs, review code and implementation approaches, and provide credible guidance to experienced engineers and data practitioners.
- Working fluency across modern data platforms, data modeling, pipelines and orchestration, analytics systems, machine learning lifecycles, cloud infrastructure, and production software practices.
- A record of improving technical platforms, automating manual processes, and creating systems that scale with the needs of the business.
- Experience managing a team with a mix of foundational platform work, product development, stakeholder-driven requests, and operational responsibilities.
- Strong judgment about when to build reusable capabilities, when to solve an immediate business need, and how to make those tradeoffs clear to stakeholders.
- The ability to partner effectively with both Engineering and go-to-market teams, translating different needs and constraints into coherent priorities.
- Experience setting expectations, managing performance, supporting career growth, and developing senior technical individual contributors.
- The communication and organizational skills to operate with a high degree of autonomy while maintaining alignment with company and engineering leadership.
- Commitment to fostering an inclusive work environment and actively contributing to team growth and cohesion.
- U.S. core business hours availability and willingness to travel for company meetings.

Bonus Points

- Experience working with fintech, payments, card-linked offers, loyalty, or other transaction-intensive products.
- Experience operating production machine learning systems or integrating models and decisioning capabilities into customer-facing products.
- Experience with high-volume batch and real-time data systems.
- Familiarity with technologies such as Databricks, dbt, AWS, Kubernetes, and Terraform.

Remote - USA Pay Range $180,000—$220,000 USD

Why Join:

Kard recognizes the unique value each of us brings to our collective success. As part of our remote-first team, you'll have the autonomy to influence our trajectory, actively contributing to the growth of our business and the evolution of our company culture. By embodying our core values of Initiative, Openness, and Humility, you will not only witness but directly foster an inclusive and dynamic work environment, from the executive level down.

Our competitive benefit plan includes:

- Flexible PTO, with a minimum requirement to take one day off a quarter, ten days a year, promoting mental well-being
- Observance of 11 Federal Holidays, plus an additional day each for Black Friday and Christmas Eve (US employees only)
- Health, Dental and Vision Insurance
- 401k with employer match (US employees only)
- Coworking space and WFH setup reimbursement
- Company Offsites for planning, team-building, and networking

Kard is an equal opportunity employer and we actively encourage applicants of all genders, backgrounds, and experiences to apply. We believe that diverse perspectives enrich our workplace and drive our success.

## About Kard Financial, Inc.

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Kard is a rewards-as-a-service API platform and the first independent commerce media network that uses predictive AI and first-party transaction data to power hyperpersonalized offers and performance marketing.
- **Entity Type**: Private (funded startup; raised $30 million total, including $23 million Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Remote‑first, United States (team across all U.S. time zones)
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Ben Mackinnon

## Core Business
- **Primary Industries**: Commerce media / loyalty / rewards‑as‑a‑service; adtech; fintech.
- **Target Customers**: B2B – fintech companies, banks, card issuers (FIs), and merchants (both online and brick‑and‑mortar).
- **Mission**: Build the first open loyalty system – a rewards‑as‑a‑service platform that enables modern issuers to connect consumers with brands they love.

## Products & Services
- **Commerce Media Network (for merchants)**: A pay‑for‑performance ad solution where merchants only pay for verified purchases, not impressions. Uses transaction data from 47M+ cardholders to target new, existing, or lapsed customers with personalized offers (location‑based, tiered, spending challenges). Includes A/B testing, AI‑driven insights, and real‑time adjustments.
- **Rewards‑as‑a‑Service API Platform (for fintechs & FIs)**: An API‑first platform that allows issuers to design their own loyalty UX while Kard handles the backend – offer management, transaction tracking, push notifications, and email campaigns. PCI‑Compliant and SOC 2 certified.
- **Realtime Ad Network**: Leverages transaction data from tens of millions of consumers to give advertisers insights into shopping behavior across the entire wallet.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: **Total Funding** – $30 million (including a $23 million Series A round).  
  *Annual revenue is not publicly available.*
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Not named explicitly in provided materials, but listed as “backed by $30M from industry‑leading investors and seasoned experts.” Also named “Techstars mentor” and “active angel investor in fintech and adtech startups” in founder bio – suggests affiliation with Techstars.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Named to the **2024 Fintech Innovation 50**.
  - Earned a spot on the **Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest‑Growing Private Companies**.
  - Employees: ~50 team members (as of latest careers FAQ) and “growing rapidly.”
  - Claims 47M+ cardholders in its network, 25K+ US locations, and metrics such as 15% re‑engagement of previously inactive cardholders and 40% more repeat purchases.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First independent commerce media network** – operates as a neutral, open platform not owned by a single bank or card network.
- **Pay‑only‑for‑verified‑purchases** model (performance‑based, not impression‑based).
- **Real first‑party transaction data** from millions of Gen Z and Millennial shoppers, enable hyperpersonalization and closed‑loop measurement.
- **API‑first, flexible design** – issuers can keep their own UX while Kard handles the heavy lifting.
- **PCI‑Compliant and SOC 2 certified** – security credentials that satisfy the largest banks and fintechs.

## Strategic Focus
- Expand the open loyalty system by onboarding more issuers, fintechs, and merchants.
- Deepen AI‑powered predictive targeting and real‑time offer optimization.
- Grow the network effect: more cardholders → better transaction data → more effective offers → more merchants and issuers joining.
- Continue scaling the “real‑time ad network” to provide cross‑merchant insights.

## Why Work Here
- **Fully remote** – “100% remote” with employees in every U.S. time zone. Work‑from‑home reimbursements and wellness stipend provided.
- **Great benefits**: Open PTO, health/vision/dental insurance, employer 401k contributions, paid parental leave, development budget.
- **Culture**: Emphasizes humility, initiative, openness, and inclusivity. Annual team offsites (2+ per year) to strengthen bonds.
- **Transparent compensation** – salary ranges included in every job description; pay targets “meet or exceed 75% of the current market rate.”
- **Structured, respectful hiring process** – interview process designed to be completed in 3–4 weeks, with take‑home assignments for R&D roles. Strong commitment to diversity and reducing bias.
- **Current open roles (R&D & Sales)**: Measurement Lead, Senior Analytics Engineer, Senior Data Scientist, Merchant Account Executive – all remote.

## Sources
1. [getkard.com](https://www.getkard.com/) – Company overview, product features, security, network stats.
2. [getkard.com/careers](https://www.getkard.com/careers) – Benefits, values, remote policy, inclusivity.
3. [getkard.com/about](https://www.getkard.com/about) – History, founder, mission, Series A funding, awards (Fintech Innovation 50, Inc. 5000).
4. [getkard.com/guide-to-interviewing-at-kard](https://www.getkard.com/guide-to-interviewing-at-kard) – Interview process, team size (~50), remote FAQ, compensation philosophy.
5. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/kardfinancialinc](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/kardfinancialinc) – Open positions, total funding ($30M), investors.

## Other roles at Kard Financial, Inc.

- [Senior Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-machine-learning-engineer-kard-financial-inc-remote-nxr7e5eadr6a)
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- [Merchant Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/merchant-account-executive-kard-financial-inc-remote-q8hh5fxftkxq)
- [Senior Data Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-data-scientist-kard-financial-inc-remote-f5h7gg3mfdn9)
- [Measurement Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/measurement-lead-kard-financial-inc-remote-5t8zbw76atv3)