---
title: 'Staff Engineer at Thera'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-thera-new-york-azwzytgcp8vy'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Staff Engineer at Thera

- **Company:** Thera
- **Location:** New York, NY
- **Compensation:** $100k–$250k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-05-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/thera/3b88d11b-84f4-492c-a3fe-03e94ff042b9

## Job description

🚀 Staff Engineer, Thera (NYC, in-person)

Thera is building the financial OS for modern SMBs. Payroll, payments, treasury, spend, accounting, and docs in one system that actually works end-to-end.

We're looking for a hands-on Staff Engineer to own the technical foundation in our highest-leverage areas and help us scale from "great product" to category-defining company.

This is not a sit-back-and-manage role. You'll be in the code, in the architecture, and in the room making high-stakes decisions daily.

📍 NYC, 5 days/week

## Why this role exists

We have:

- a product customers use
- real workflows running through it
- increasing complexity across payments, accounting, and ops

We need someone who can turn that into a durable, scalable system.

## What you'll own

- Architecture and technical direction across payroll, payments, and new products
- Engineering execution on the hardest problems in the stack
- Helping hire and tech-lead a small, high-quality team (starting ~5 engineers)
- Decisions on security, reliability, scalability, and compliance in your areas
- Tight partnership with product and ops to translate real workflows into systems
- Roadmaps, prioritization, and actually shipping

## What you'll build

- Systems powering payroll and money movement
- Products across Spend, Docs, Cash, and Accounting
- Internal tooling that reduces manual work and errors
- Infrastructure that increases velocity without breaking things

## Your first 90 days

30 days

- Get deep on the system, data flows, and constraints
- Identify the biggest risks (payments, data integrity, scaling)
- Ship a meaningful improvement on the spend product

60 days

- Start addressing the highest-leverage technical gaps
- Map out future builds across the roadmap
- Begin influencing how we hire and level engineers

90 days

- Set technical direction in your areas
- Improve engineering velocity and reliability
- Help build out our engineering in-person culture

## About you

- You've built and scaled real systems
- You're still hands-on and like being close to the code
- Strong systems thinker
- You move fast and take ownership
- Comfortable operating in a regulated environment
- You've mentored or tech-led engineers before

Stack today: TypeScript + Java/Kotlin (flexible)

Not a fit if

- You want a pure management role
- You avoid ambiguity or messy real-world systems
- You're not willing to be in-person in NYC

## Why Thera

- You shape the technical foundation in your areas
- You work directly with founders
- Your decisions immediately impact the company's trajectory

Backed by YC, 10X Founders, Zillionize, and Amino Capital.

More: https://www.getthera.com/principles

## About Thera

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Thera is a payroll and global employment platform that combines US payroll, contractor payments, and Employer of Record (EOR) services with a rewards program that lets users earn points redeemable for travel and services.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed-stage; Y Combinator S22)
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Akhil Reddy (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Payroll & Benefits, Global Employment (EOR), Contractor Management, Fintech
- **Target customers**: B2B – startups, small businesses, and global teams that need to hire and pay employees and contractors across multiple countries
- **Mission or purpose**: “The most rewarding payroll platform. Ever.” – making payroll and global hiring simple, compliant, and engaging through a points-based rewards system.

## Products & Services
- **US Payroll**: Run multi-state payroll with automated tax filings, state registrations, and compliance. Onboarding in 1–3 days.
- **Contractor Management**: Pay independent contractors in 150+ countries with best exchange rates, 8 payout methods, and same-day withdrawals. Contractors earn points on payouts.
- **Employer of Record (EOR)**: Hire employees in 150+ countries without setting up legal entities. Handles compliance, tax filings, and benefits administration.
- **Benefits Administration**: Automates health insurance, retirement plans, and statutory benefits that meet local requirements.
- **Thera Points Rewards**: Users (both employers and contractors) earn points on payroll/payouts that can be redeemed for flights, hotels, and services.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $8.1M (across 2 seed rounds: $4.0M in Aug 2022 and $4.0M in Aug 2024, plus a smaller $125K seed in Mar 2022)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator (Batch S22); 10+ investors in the 2024 seed round (names not publicly listed). Banking services provided by a partner bank.
- **Growth Signals**: 23 employees (+18.8% YoY), 4 active job postings, monthly job postings up 33.3% YoY. LinkedIn followers grew 23.1% in the past year. Expanding engineering, marketing, and GTM teams.

## Competitive Advantages
- **AI-native payroll engine** that automates tax calculations, filings, and regulatory changes across jurisdictions.
- **Points-based rewards system** – a unique differentiator that turns a commodity (payroll processing) into an engaging, value-adding experience for customers and contractors.
- **Speed of onboarding** – most customers go live in 1–3 days, with data migration handled by Thera.
- **Dedicated Slack support** – 24/7 access to real people for payroll, compliance, and technical questions.
- **Full-stack global employment** – US payroll, international EOR, and contractor payments in one platform, reducing vendor fragmentation.

## Strategic Focus
- Build an “AI-native Finance OS” that unifies payroll, AP/AR, and payment solutions for global teams.
- Deepen EOR capabilities and expand into more countries (currently 150+).
- Continue scaling the rewards program to drive customer acquisition and retention.
- Grow engineering and product teams to accelerate platform automation and AI features.

## Why Work Here
- **Founding team** from Palantir and Amazon – strong engineering culture and high standards.
- **Y Combinator-backed** (S22) – fast-paced, iterative environment with a “Move Fast” principle.
- **Culture principles** (“Thera 10”) emphasize customer obsession, excellence, and speed – “simple to remember, hard to live up to.”
- **Remote/hybrid**: HQ in New York, NY (1460 Broadway) with offices in India and Serbia. Roles listed include both NYC-based and remote options.
- **Growth opportunity**: Early-stage company (23 people) with 4 open roles – chance to have outsized impact and shape product and culture.
- **Perks**: Thera Points rewards for contractors; employees likely benefit from the platform’s own benefits administration.

## Sources
1. [getthera.com](https://www.getthera.com/)
2. [getthera.com/principles](https://www.getthera.com/principles)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/thera](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/thera)
4. [linkedin.com/company/getthera](https://www.linkedin.com/company/getthera)
5. [ycombinator.com/companies/thera/jobs](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/thera/jobs)

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