Full-Stack Software Engineer

About

About Kobalt Labs

Automate and strengthen manual risk and compliance operations for fintechs and banks. Given a third party contracts and documentation, Kobalt's reasoning engine ingests internal policies and procedures, legal commitments, past privacy and compliance assessments, and syncs with external legislation to instantly auto-surface and track risks. We're helping community/regional/sponsor banks increase revenue and scale their partnership and vendor volume, and we're helping fintechs conduct their partner diligence in 1/10 the time, all without needing to increase headcount.

About the role

Kobalt Labs is hiring Full Stack Engineers to expand both product lines: Vendor Risk Management (frontend-leaning): Own and build the frontend experience for Kobalt's vendor risk product, working across React and Next.js to create a best-in-class interface for compliance teams managing third-party risk

What you'll own

• Marketing Compliance (backend-leaning): Own the backend infrastructure for Kobalt's marketing compliance product, building the APIs, data pipelines, and systems that power automated compliance review at scale in Python and FastAPI
• Marketing Compliance (ML Engineer): Own the ML layer for the marketing compliance product, building the models, eval frameworks, and AI pipelines that make the product intelligent
• You will work directly with customers on a weekly basis, drive roadmap items based on your own interactions and product vision, and have a real path to leading expansion into new product areas as the company scales in H2.
• What You'll Own
• Build and ship full-stack features across Python, FastAPI, React, and Next.js
• Work directly with customers on a weekly basis, taking feedback and translating it into product improvements that work for all clients, not just one
• Drive roadmap items based on your own customer interactions and product vision
• Build infrastructure and systems that are extensible and scalable, not just fast
• Contribute to architectural and technical decisions alongside the founding team
• Lead expansion into new product areas as the company grows in H2

Requirements

Must-have

• Full-stack capability with Python and FastAPI on the backend, React and Next.js on the frontend
• 4 to 7 years of experience, staff-level thinking required
• Has built products that people actually use, not just technically impressive but user-ignored systems
• Infrastructure experience or systems thinking, ability to think holistically about how components interact
• AI-forward, comfortable using Claude, Conductor, and the latest tooling to move quickly and innovate
• High agency, identifies problems and solves them without being asked
• Can be customer-facing, comfortable hopping on calls with clients weekly, and extracting useful product signals
• Cares deeply about quality, moves fast, but does not cut corners on the things that matter
• Has a founder mentality, invested in the outcome of where the company is going, not just shipping tickets
• Based in or willing to relocate to New York City, 5 days a week in the office preferred with some flexibility
• Relocation assistance available for the right candidate on a case-by-case basis
• No visa sponsorship to start, may revisit H-1B transfers and O-1 after initial search

Nice-to-have

• Startup experience, especially zero-to-one product building
• An infrastructure or backend engineering background that demonstrates systems thinking
• Has worked at or been accepted to top-tier companies (Anthropic, Clay, or equivalent signal)
• Degree from Caltech, MIT, UIUC, Waterloo, or equivalent top engineering school
• Wants to be a founder someday and sees this as the closest thing to it without the full risk
• Cares as much about whether their product is being used as whether their code is clean
• Moves quickly and ships often without sacrificing quality on the things that matter
• Can hold technical depth and customer empathy simultaneously
• Is honorable, sticks to their commitments, and takes ownership without being managed

Benefits & perks

• Equity 0.5% - 1%

Interview process

1. 1Application review
2. 2Intro call
3. 3One-on-one conversations
4. 4Optional coding interview
5. 5Chat
6. 6Paid work trial
7. 7Offer Extended
8. 8Hired