[Hiring] Software Engineer @NerdWallet

Role Description

At NerdWallet, we're building tools and experiences that help people make smarter financial decisions. As a Software Engineer focused on AI & Automation within our Security organization, you'll build production software and AI-enabled systems that make security work more scalable, effective, and developer-friendly across NerdWallet.

You'll apply strong software engineering fundamentals and hands-on AI experience to:

• Automate complex security workflows.
• Build internal platforms and developer tooling.
• Help rethink how security engineering operates in an AI-native environment.

Projects you may be working on in this position include:

• Designing and building AI-enabled workflows and multi-agent systems that automate security design review, threat modeling, policy Q&A, vulnerability analysis, and other high-value security processes.
• Building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and semantic search experiences across large code and documentation repositories.
• Creating automated code-review capabilities that help identify insecure patterns and improve software quality earlier in the development lifecycle.
• Building production Python services and APIs that power AI-enabled security workflows, with thoughtful architecture, authentication, authorization, testing, observability, and reliability.
• Designing and operating scalable pipelines that ingest, process, index, and retrieve large volumes of code, documents, and events.
• Improving AI system quality through evaluation frameworks, experiment management, prompt and context management, observability, and evidence-based iteration.
• Managing practical production tradeoffs such as latency, reliability, model/provider selection, token usage, and cost.
• Designing integrations with GitHub, Slack, Jira, Confluence, LLM providers, and internal services so security guidance fits naturally into engineering workflows.
• Applying security controls to AI applications, including prompt injection defenses, sensitive-data handling, access control, supply-chain considerations, and safe model inputs and outputs.
• Identifying new opportunities for software, automation, and AI augmentation across the Security team and independently moving high-value ideas from problem definition through production.

Where you can make an impact:

• Own technically meaningful software and AI initiatives from problem definition through production and ongoing operation.
• Help shape how AI and automation are used across NerdWallet Security, including when AI is the right solution and when it is not.
• Build tools and platforms that make security easier for engineering teams to adopt and use.
• Improve the speed, consistency, and quality of security workflows through thoughtful software design and automation.
• Grow into deeper application and AI security expertise while bringing strong software engineering judgment to the team.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly and collaborate with engineers, security partners, and non-technical stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production software.
• Strong Python proficiency, including hands-on experience building production backend services and APIs.
• Experience designing maintainable backend architectures, including separation of concerns, request/response validation, authentication/authorization, error handling, testing, and observability.
• Experience developing distributed or cloud-based systems and making practical decisions about scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Hands-on experience building production AI-enabled applications or automations using LLM APIs, agents/tool use, RAG/retrieval, or comparable architectures.
• Experience defining, evaluating, and improving the quality of AI-enabled systems in production.
• Ability to work through ambiguity, identify opportunities independently, and move technical work from idea to implementation.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to explain technical decisions, tradeoffs, and limitations clearly.
• Interest in secure software development and willingness to build deeper expertise in application security and AI security.

Benefits

• Industry-leading medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and their dependents.
• Rejuvenation Policy – Flexible Vacation Time Off + 11 holidays + holiday company shutdown.
• New Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed with them for adoption or foster care.
• Mental health support.
• Paid sabbatical after 5 years for Nerds to recharge, gain knowledge, and pursue their interests.
• Health and Dependent Care FSA and HSA Plan with monthly NerdWallet contribution.
• Monthly Wellness Stipend, Cell Phone Stipend, and Wifi Stipend (Only remote Nerds are eligible for the Wifi Stipend).
• Work from home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy (Only remote Nerds are eligible for these stipends).
• Nerd-led group initiatives – Employee Resource Groups for Parents, Diversity, and Inclusion, Women, LGBTQIA, and other communities.
• Hackathons and team events across all teams and departments.
• Company-wide events like NerdLove (employee appreciation) and our annual Charity Auction.
• Take 8 hours of volunteer time off per quarter and donate to your favorite causes with a company match.
• 401K with 4% company match.
• Financial wellness, guidance, and unlimited access to a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) through Northstar.
• Disability and Life Insurance with employer-paid premiums.