Sr Engineering Manager – API & Auth Platform
Betterment · New York, United States · 3d ago
About Betterment
Betterment is a leading, technology-driven financial services company that offers investing, savings and retirement solutions for retail investors and investment advisors as well as financial wellness solutions, including a 401(k) for small and medium-sized businesses. Our team is passionate about our mission, to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease. We're headquartered in NYC and offer hybrid NY-based positions (four days/week in-office, with no required office days during the summer and winter holidays).
About the Role
The API & Auth Platform team enables product teams across Betterment to build and operate APIs quickly, enjoyably, and securely. As Sr Engineering Manager, you will lead a team of senior/staff engineers stewarding our shared GraphQL API frameworks, authentication and access control systems, and internal tooling platform.
You will work directly with engineering and product leadership to drive the technical direction of the GraphQL API frameworks powering our customer-facing web and mobile applications. You will also collaborate closely with operations, customer support, and compliance partners to ensure our internal APIs let teams operate Betterment systems with the rigor our customers and regulators expect.
As AI tooling reshapes how we build and operate our systems, you will have significant influence over how Betterment's APIs support AI agents and tooling safely in a regulated financial services environment.
This role is based out of our NYC office. Below we've reflected the base salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterment's total compensation package for employees.
- New York City: $200,000 - $230,000
This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus.
A Day in the Life
- Lead and grow a team of senior/staff engineers building the API, authentication, and internal tooling platform that every Betterment team relies on.
- Drive technical strategy for the GraphQL API frameworks powering our customer-facing and internal apps, including agentic tooling for AI-native API development workflows.
- Ensure Betterment's authentication and authorization systems remain current with industry best practices.
- Sequence your team roadmap to balance reliability, security, developer experience, and platform capabilities — e.g. secure, first-party MCP access to Betterment APIs.
- Work alongside the product teams who build on your platform every day. Develop broad Betterment domain expertise in the process.
- Hold the line on the standards that keep shared systems healthy. Make them visible and easy to meet, and ensure teams understand the "why" behind them.
- Partner with IT and security on platform governance so engineering teams can build on the API platform and ops teams can operate through it with confidence — as new AI identity and access patterns take shape.
- Partner with department leaders on a permission model that fits evolving team workflows and incorporates new AI tooling, including MCP servers and connectors.
- Cultivate efficient, blameless incident response across your team and the teams building on the API platform. Invest in observability that serves both developers and internal tool users.
- Translate Betterment's strong culture of accountability into platform operating procedures — clear ownership, security, and iteration.
What We're Looking For
- Experience managing senior and staff ICs; ability to coach engineers through technically complex challenges while maintaining team momentum. Capable of meaningful architectural direction, code review, and hands-on work in our codebase.
- Proven track record leading a team that owns a shared platform used by engineering, operations, and customer support teams. Experience leading projects that affect multiple teams' software systems, tooling, and development workflows.
- Experience managing shared API platforms — ideally GraphQL. An appreciation for the frameworks, conventions, and developer tooling that let product teams introduce new capabilities, support existing usage, and gracefully retire legacy functionality.
- Hands-on experience with modern authentication/authorization patterns (OAuth 2.0, OIDC, passkeys), with an understanding of the importance of adoption, long-term support, and security testing.
- Experience partnering with IT, security, and business leaders on governance, access, and permission models. Ability to build trust across disciplines and adapt as AI tools introduce new identity and access patterns.
- Principled approach to balancing the need to move quickly today with the need to move quickly tomorrow, with an appreciation of how to meet high standards for customer quality and regulatory requirements.
Join a team built on these core values
We change lives
Be a part of a community of innovators working to transform financial outcomes for real people. Your work will make an impact, always laddering up to our mission; to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease.
We set audacious goals
We set them for the company, our customers, and ourselves, and we won’t stop until we reach them. We don’t just show up; we give our all, then celebrate our wins.
We value all perspectives
When we collaborate, we're at our best. We believe diverse perspectives lead to better outcomes and strive to uphold our supportive and inclusive community.
We simplify financial services
We’re financial services pioneers, always finding new ways to improve, optimize, and enhance. Constant improvement is in our DNA.
Our Commitment to Your Total Well-being:
- We offer a competitive suite of benefits, including medical, dental, and vision coverage; life and AD&D insurance; short- and long-term disability; infertility support and WPATH-aligned transgender health benefits; an Employee Assistance Program (EAP); transit benefits and FSA and HSA options
- Ownership: Equity for all employees, including new hire and refresher grants.
- Time: Flexible paid time off, paid parental leave, and a fully paid four-week sabbatical in your sixth year.
- Growth: Company-paid professional coaching for all employees.
- Wealth: Day-one 401(k) match plus matching on qualified student loan payments.
What happens next
We’ll take a few weeks to review all applications. If we’d like to spend more time with you, we’ll reach out to arrange next steps, which will include 3-4 sets of meetings with your future colleagues.
In the interview process, we’ll look to learn more about your skills, experiences, capabilities, and motivators. Many of our questions will be aimed at understanding how you might operate here at Betterment. Depending on the role, we may ask you to complete a case study exercise or technical assessments, as we want to collect a robust set of data points to better inform our decisions.
On average, it takes us around 3-5 weeks to make a hiring decision, depending on your availability and sense of urgency. As a best practice, we aim to interview at least 2-3 final round candidates before making a hiring decision. Please note that, as we usually receive an overwhelming number of applications for open positions, we’re unable to offer individual feedback during the interview process.
We recognize that interviewing for a new role is a big deal. We appreciate you considering Betterment as the next step in your career, and our Recruiting Team is here to support and advocate for you through the interview process!
Betterment is dedicated to providing accommodations to candidates upon request. If you need accommodations at any point throughout the interview process, please reach out to your recruiter.
Please note that in any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
Come join us!
We’re an equal opportunity employer and comply with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. We strictly prohibit and do not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants, or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex, gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), sexual orientation, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, predisposing genetic characteristic, domestic violence victim status, arrest records, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.