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Salary: USD 190,000 - 295,000 / annual
Cardless is building infrastructure for companies to design, build, and launch their own financial products. Clients like Coinbase and Bilt use Cardless APIs and components to create branded credit cards while Cardless handles lending, compliance, and operations behind the scenes. The company raised $60M Series C in September 2025 (total funding $170M) and is scaling toward profitability by end of 2026.
As a Software Engineer on the Ledger team, you will own the system of record that tracks what every cardholder owes and what the company owes them. The ledger is foundational to all downstream systems: statements, interest calculations, payment application, customer app displays, partner reporting, and regulatory filings all depend on ledger accuracy. This is a founding engineering role with real architectural ownership at the senior-to-staff level.
Key responsibilities:
- Own the double-entry ledger architecture and the invariants it must maintain across all card programs
- Build credit mechanics on top of the ledger: billing cycle close, statement generation, interest accrual, payment allocation, fees, delinquency, and charge-off
- Own reconciliation from sub-ledger to GL and build break detection to catch silent failures before close
- Set architecture and prioritize what gets built in what order
- Work directly with Finance, Compliance, and partners on audit requirements
The role requires deep expertise in production backend systems and financial infrastructure. You will scope your own work and explain tradeoffs to cross-functional colleagues. The company emphasizes kind, humble people with high standards and low egos who take the work seriously.
Location: San Francisco, CA (Jackson Square district). This is a 5 days per week in-office role.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 6+ years building production backend systems with meaningful time on ledger, core banking, money movement, or payments platform work
- Proven track record building (not just integrating with) one of: a double-entry ledger that became the system of record for balances; in-house card processing or authorization/settlement infrastructure; or migration of a card/money-movement program off third-party processor onto in-house rails
- Think in invariants: idempotency, immutability, event sourcing, and how to prove critical properties hold at all times
- Strong distributed systems and API fundamentals in a modern backend language
- Comfortable with ambiguity; able to scope own work and explain tradeoffs across functions
BONUS QUALIFICATIONS:
- Credit card ledger expertise: revolving credit, billing cycles, interest accrual, APR, minimum payments, payment waterfalls, installment plans, Reg Z / TILA
- Auth-to-settlement lifecycle knowledge: pending vs. posted, capture, clearing, network files, ISO 8583, refunds, reversals, dispute and chargeback accounting
- Prior experience building or rewriting ledgers at Chime, Stripe, Block, Affirm, Brex, Ramp, Mercury, Increase, or Modern Treasury
- Prior issuing platform experience at Marqeta, Lithic, Highnote, or Galileo
