Software Engineer

Software Engineer

Company: Strala
Location: San Francisco, CA (in person; full relocation support)
Compensation: $165,000 - $250,000 + 0.03% - 0.05% equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: H-1B, O-1, OPT

About Strala

Strala is rebuilding insurance claims as an AI-native operator, automating intake, fraud detection and settlement across the claims lifecycle. It reached multi-seven-figure ARR in under a year.

Strala has raised two rounds from tier-1 funds including Founders Fund (about $51M within a year of its 2025 seed). The team of about 25, including 11 engineers, comes from Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, Optiver, AMD and Palantir, and plans to reach 100 by year end.

The Role

Strala is hiring Software Engineers to own and build the core infrastructure of an AI-native insurance platform. You will deploy to production on day one, write your own specs, and operate with extreme ownership. After a first week learning the insurance space, you will identify what needs building and build it, with a path to a leadership role as the team scales.

What You Will Do

• Ship to production from day one and own your code.
• Build core infrastructure, databases (PostgreSQL, vector databases) and architecture.
• Write specs, design systems and build features end to end.
• Scale the codebase to support rapid growth.
• Work directly with the founding team and help hire your next teammates.

What You Bring

• 2-7 years of backend development experience (exceptional new grads with top internships such as Optiver or Jane Street considered)
• Strong Python and backend fundamentals with a record of shipping production code fast
• System design depth: PostgreSQL, vector databases and scalable architecture
• Cloud fluency: REST, GraphQL, GCP, AWS, Docker
• High agency and extreme ownership
• Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco

Nice to Have

• ICPC, IOI, NeurIPS or equivalent signal
• Experience at Optiver, DRW, Citadel or similar
• Regulated-industry or financial services experience
• Prior CTO or founding engineer role

Benefits

Top-quartile salary and equity, full relocation support, all meals covered, and productivity tools covered.

REVENUE: 17.5% of first-year salary. Est. fee per hire $29K-$44K; 3 seat(s) = up to $109K if all filled.

TARGET COMPANIES (client (quant firms named) + suggested): Optiver, Jane Street, Citadel, DRW, Palantir, Lemonade, Hippo.

BEST-FIT CANDIDATE: 2-7 yrs; Python backend; Postgres/vector DB design; high agency; visa: H-1B, O-1, OPT; location: SF in person.