Software Engineer II

Location: Remote, United States
Type: Full-Time Contract
Schedule: 40 hours/week

About Project vNext

Project vNext builds software for both internal products and external clients, with a primary focus on financial technology.

We're a small team that values ownership, pragmatism, discipline, and execution. We care more about an engineer's judgment, problem-solving ability, communication, and track record of delivering quality work than whether they've worked with a specific framework or technology before.

We're looking for a Software Engineer II with approximately 3–5 years of professional experience who can independently own well-scoped features, make sound implementation and design decisions, and contribute as a capable full-stack engineer while working on real products used by businesses and customers.

What You'll Do

  • Own the implementation of well-scoped features across frontend and backend systems
  • Build and maintain web applications, internal tools, and supporting services
  • Make practical technical decisions for smaller systems, components, APIs, and feature-level designs
  • Collaborate with senior engineers on larger architecture and higher-impact technical tradeoffs
  • Support and improve existing applications, services, deployment pipelines, and cloud infrastructure
  • Participate actively in code reviews, technical discussions, and engineering planning
  • Mentor junior engineers through code review, pairing, feedback, and examples of strong execution
  • Contribute to team practices, documentation, maintainability, and overall engineering quality
  • Contribute to projects for external clients and partner organizations
  • Learn new technologies and development practices as needed

Most of your work will involve extending and improving existing systems, though opportunities for greenfield development will arise as well.

Technology Stack

Our current stack includes:

  • Go
  • HTMX
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Templ
  • Connect RPC
  • PostgreSQL
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • ECS
  • Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
  • Native Mobile Applications

We favor simple, maintainable systems and server-rendered applications over complex frontend architectures whenever practical. We believe strong engineering comes from choosing the right level of complexity for a problem rather than adopting technology for its own sake.

Experience with every technology listed above is not expected, but candidates should expect to have meaningful experience with several of them or closely related technologies.

What We're Looking For

Required

  • 3–5 years of professional software development experience
  • Experience building and shipping production software in a professional environment
  • Experience with at least one strongly typed programming language such as:
    • Go
    • C#
    • Java
    • Kotlin
    • Rust
    • Swift
    • TypeScript
  • Ability to own well-scoped features from implementation through delivery
  • Practical design ability for smaller systems, components, APIs, and feature-level architecture
  • Strong problem-solving ability and technical judgment
  • Strong written communication skills
  • Ability to work effectively in a remote environment
  • Demonstrated ability to stay focused, execute consistently, and complete work with minimal supervision
  • Willingness to learn unfamiliar technologies when required

Preferred

  • Experience with several of the technologies in our current stack or closely related tools
  • Experience with PostgreSQL or relational database design
  • Experience with Docker or containerized development workflows
  • Experience building web applications across both frontend and backend systems
  • Experience supporting production systems, debugging issues, improving observability, or participating in incident response/on-call rotations
  • Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS
  • Open-source contributions, personal projects, startup experience, or other evidence of initiative and independent execution

Education

A Computer Science degree or related technical degree is welcome but not required.

For this role, we care more about professional work experience, ownership, technical judgment, and demonstrated delivery than formal education.

What Success Looks Like

The ideal candidate is:

  • Product-minded and delivery-oriented
  • Reliable, accountable, and able to own outcomes
  • Comfortable making practical tradeoffs and explaining technical decisions
  • Able to work through ambiguity without becoming blocked
  • Able to mentor junior engineers and improve team practices through practical examples, code review, and feedback
  • Comfortable receiving feedback and continuing to learn
  • Disciplined, focused, and consistent
  • Interested in continuing to grow as a strong full-stack engineer

Compensation

Compensation is based on experience, demonstrated capability, and role responsibilities. The ranges below are annualized for a full-time contract role at 40 hours per week.

  • $115,000–$130,000 for Software Engineer II candidates who are not participating in on-call support responsibilities
  • $125,000–$145,000 for Software Engineer II candidates participating in light on-call support responsibilities

On-call expectations, rotation frequency, response expectations, and any additional support responsibilities will be discussed clearly during the hiring process.

Hiring Process

We keep the process concise and practical.

1. Manager Conversation

A discussion focused on background, interests, goals, and mutual fit.

2. Technical Exercise

A practical coding exercise focused on engineering fundamentals and problem-solving ability.

3. Architecture Discussion

A collaborative discussion focused on system design, tradeoffs, communication, and technical reasoning.

The entire process typically requires approximately two hours of candidate time.

How to Apply

Please provide:

  • Resume
  • LinkedIn profile, if available
  • GitHub profile, if available
  • Brief description of projects you've built or contributed to with a focus on something you made simpler

We're particularly interested in candidates who take ownership, communicate clearly, make practical technical decisions, enjoy building software, keep learning, and consistently deliver high-quality work.