Senior/staff Backend Engineer, Finance

Overview Fora is the modern travel agency , empowering travel entrepreneurs to build a thriving advisory business. Our mission is to help the next generation of travel entrepreneurs turn their love for travel into a fulfilling career, whether full-time or part-time. Fora provides a business-in-a-box platform with tools, training, community, and exclusive partnerships to help launch and scale advisory businesses. We are based in New York City with a distributed team and have grown to 200+ full-time employees. We are building the first truly unified platform for all travel needs—leveraging human expertise and technology to transform how people plan and book travel. Role We’re looking for a seasoned Senior/Staff Backend Engineer to join the Finance Pod, which builds and maintains the systems that power advisor payments at Fora. This pod owns the end-to-end advisor payment system and experience (booking data ingestion, commission collection, and payouts), and is expanding into new fintech and payment products. You’ll design and implement scalable systems that ensure payouts are fast, accurate, and transparent, while collaborating with Product and Ops to bring financial data to life in the Advisor Portal and internal tools. You’ll help build and evolve services that handle booking ingestion, payout logic, reconciliation, and integrations with payment processors like Stripe. Example projects include building visualizations for the Payments page, shaping our traveler invoicing experience, building payout statuses and notifications, and integrating with new financial platforms and services. Our ideal candidate understands our mission and is excited to shape how thousands of travel entrepreneurs get paid—bringing an eye for user experience, data integrity, and trust to every interaction involving money movement. Key Responsibilities Partner with Product Managers and Designers to define and prioritize the roadmap for advisor payments, commission earnings, and revenue systems Design and maintain distributed systems that process booking, payment, and reconciliation data at scale Build and optimize backend services that power payout logic, transaction timing, ledger accuracy, and integrations with third-party payment platforms Focus on performance, architecture, data modeling, and transactional reliability in all systems you own Collaborate with other engineers to define end-to-end engineering solutions that connect frontend experiences with secure, verifiable backend processes Own epics and be responsible for the full solution—design, implementation, and delivery Requirements Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience 5+ years experience in backend web development 3+ years experience with Python, using Django / Flask / equivalent frameworks Strong experience designing APIs and distributed systems that handle financial or transactional data Experience with relational databases, ORMs, and data models that support accounting or ledger-based workflows Background in FinTech, Payments, or Infrastructure—especially systems involving reconciliation, double-entry accounting, or money movement—is highly preferred AWS experience, a plus Kubernetes experience, a plus Ability to be a team player, with strong communication and collaboration skills An entrepreneurial mindset Compensation Compensation for this role varies based on experience, with an indicative range of $155K–$225K + equity. Final compensation depends on the level at which the candidate is hired. Unlimited vacation Health Insurance (including an option completely covered by Fora HQ) Dental & Vision Insurance Wellhub Memberships 401k plan with company match Commuter Benefits Supplemental Life Insurance Stock Options Location: New York City with a hybrid WFH & in-office schedule (Tribeca in-office Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays; flexible for Wednesday and Friday). Our Values We’re forging our own path Fora drives change within the industry and isn’t interested in maintaining the status quo. We’re stronger together Community is our cornerstone and collective power helps advisors, partners, and travelers succeed when we operate together. We believe in technology Technology is key to solving travel industry challenges; AI, platform investments, and a robust data infrastructure transform work for advisors and travelers. We’re here to serve We empower our community and prioritize advisors’ best interests throughout employment, recruitment, and promotion decisions. We mean business We enable thousands of travel entrepreneurs and provide high-quality opportunities at scale while delivering a superior travel experience. Legal and Hiring Details WORK AUTHORIZATION U.S. work authorization is required for full-time roles based in our New York City office. Fora cannot sponsor U.S. work visas for this role. Roles based outside the United States have different requirements. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Fora is committed to an equitable hiring process and an inclusive work environment. BIPOC and traditionally underrepresented candidates are encouraged to apply. We do not discriminate on protected characteristics and comply with applicable laws. #J-18808-Ljbffr