Every year over 8 million Americans take out a residential mortgage, enabling
them to achieve the dream of home ownership. Yet the traditional mortgage
process is slow, manual, and often opaque—leaving homebuyers with delays,
inefficiencies, and sometimes unfair treatment.
At **Friday Harbor** , we’re on a mission to revolutionize mortgage
origination by replacing outdated, paper-based workflows with secure, digital
systems that ensure fairness and build trust. Originally emerging from the
Allen Institute for AI in Seattle, our cutting-edge technology is designed to:
* Transform Outdated Systems into Digital Workflows: Replace cumbersome manual processes with automated, efficient systems.
* Ensure Fair and Unbiased Lending: Leverage AI to eliminate human bias and ensure every applicant is judged solely on data-driven criteria.
* Enhance Transparency and Trust: Build transparent platforms that empower both borrowers and lenders with clear, reliable information.
While our headquarters are in Seattle, our engineering team is fully remote
(with quarterly off-sites) so that you can enjoy the flexibility of remote
work while contributing to a collaborative and creative team environment.
**The Role: Senior Backend Engineer**
With strong market validation and growing customer demand, we're scaling our
engineering team to meet the needs of our expanding customer base. We’re
seeking an experienced Senior Backend Engineer to join our small, growing team
of engineers. In this role, you will work closely with our CTO and fellow
engineers to build and enhance our AI-driven mortgage underwriting platform,
driving the evolution of the mortgage industry with technologies such as Large
Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
**Responsibilities**
* Innovate and Transform: Collaborate with the CTO and the engineering team to reimagine legacy, paper-heavy processes into streamlined digital workflows.
* Architect Scalable Systems: Design and build robust backend systems and APIs that power our AI-driven mortgage platform, ensuring optimal performance, security, and reliability.
* Drive Fair Lending: Integrate AI and data-driven models to minimize human bias, ensuring every applicant receives a fair and equitable evaluation.
* Enhance Transparency: Work on integrating LLMs and RAG into our platform, delivering clear and trustworthy decision-making processes for both borrowers and lenders.
* Integrate & Innovate: Connect with external services and APIs to continuously expand the functionality of our platform.
* Collaborate & Contribute: Help shape the technical roadmap and culture of our growing engineering team, providing technical insights and creative solutions.
**Requirements**
* 4+ years of experience as a backend engineer with expertise in building scalable, high-performance systems using Python.
* Proficiency with cloud platforms (preferably AWS) and containerization technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker.
* Experience building APIs and integrating with other platforms.
* Production experience with SQL and Temporal.
* Strong problem-solving skills and a proven ability to design and implement efficient, maintainable software solutions.
* Experience in an early-stage startup or dynamic, fast-paced environment.
* Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to thrive in a cross-functional team setting.
* A passion for building exceptional user experiences and a deep commitment to customer satisfaction.
* Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
**Preferred Qualifications**
* Familiarity with frontend technologies (Next.js, Tailwind, TypeScript).
* Experience with AI/LLM frameworks like Langchain, dspy, and Langsmith.
* Knowledge of CI/CD processes, infrastructure, and DevOps practices.
* Experience in modern financial technology systems.
* Contributions to open-source projects or a strong portfolio of personal projects.
* An interest in fintech.
**Our Engineering Culture**
We believe in empowering engineers with high autonomy and ownership. Technical
decisions are driven from the ground up, with engineers having significant
influence over architecture, technology choices, and implementation
approaches. We foster an environment where creative solutions are encouraged
and where every team member can make meaningful contributions to our technical
direction. Our flat structure and collaborative approach mean your ideas won't
just be heard - they'll help shape our platform's future.
This is your opportunity to help redefine the mortgage process for millions of
Americans through technology and innovation. Join us at Friday Harbor and be
part of a team that’s transforming an industry while driving meaningful
impact.