Pear Vc

Senior Product Engineer

Austin, TX, California, United States · On-site · FullTime

USD 130,000–220,000/yearPosted over 6 months ago: check it’s still open

Apply on the employer’s site ↗See how well you match this job

You apply directly with the employer. ROLIVA does not submit applications from this page and is not the employer.

About the role

Description from the employer’s posting. Check the employer’s page for the current version.

EmployerPear Vc
LocationAustin, TX, California, United States
Work styleOn-site
Employment typeFullTime
Employer posted9 months ago
Salary (as stated by the employer)USD 130,000 – 220,000 per year

Senior Product Engineer @ Kato

About the Job

Position: Senior Product Engineer (Full-Time)

Reporting to: CTO

Location: San Francisco (4 days/week in person)

Company Overview

Lenders spend over $24B every year hiring agents to perform manual, repetitive servicing work. Existing AI solutions try to automate this, but they treat regulatory guardrails as an afterthought - meaning they can’t guarantee compliance and can’t be trusted with critical servicing workflows.

Kato takes a different approach.

Regulations aren’t an afterthought - they’re the foundation. We start with a regulatory rules system and layer an AI decision engine on top of it. With this architecture, we’re building an AI-powered servicing platform that automates critical workflows across every channel with full compliance and best-in-class recoveries. Human teams are then free to focus only on the judgment-driven work that truly needs them.

Show full description

We are starting today with a compliance first Voice AI agent that handles outbound and inbound loan servicing calls, and are already in production with major names in the fintech lending space like Bilt Rewards and Parafin.

Kato is founded by a team with deep operating expertise in financial services and software engineering:

Pratik Risbud (CEO/Co-Founder): Former Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs and led Credit/Operations at Brex

David Zhu (CTO/Co-Founder): Former Software Engineer at Google and Engineering Manager at Brex

Kato is backed by institutional capital from Pear VC and angel investors from top tech companies such as Brex, Bridge, and Square. We are looking for top talent to join our team and power our growth.

The Role

We're seeking a driven, high-impact Senior Product Engineer to work directly with customers to build impactful new products and improvements. As our second engineering hire, you'll have an unparalleled opportunity to shape our technical foundation and future.

You'll own mission-critical projects driving company success, initially focusing on onboarding new customers and augmenting our voice agent framework as new customer needs arise. The role spans our entire technical stack - from real-time voice processing to customer-facing dashboards, infrastructure scaling, and product expansion. There will be significant opportunities to define product direction, build out engineering best practices and technical standards, and rapidly grow your scope and career.

Reporting directly to the CTO, this full-time role includes significant equity ownership.

Key Responsibilities

Lead architecture and implementation of our real-time voice processing system

Design and build scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems

Optimize LLM integration for natural, compliance-aware conversations

Develop internal tools for voice agent monitoring and improvement

Build customer-facing dashboards and reporting systems

Partner with customers to translate requirements into technical solutions

Establish engineering best practices and technical standards

Drive technical decisions that shape product direction

Requirements

Must Have:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

2-5 years of production software engineering experience

Strong background in API design

Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP)

Excellent problem-solving and architectural thinking

Strong communication and organizational skills

"Owner's mindset" with bias for action

Lives and breathes product and code quality

Endless curiosity and learning drive

Nice to Have:

Experience with real-time audio processing or WebRTC

Background in Golang, TypeScript, or React

Experience with LLM integration and prompt engineering

DevOps and infrastructure automation experience

Fintech or financial systems background

Tech Stack

Backend: Golang, PostgreSQL,

Frontend: Next.js, TypeScript, React, TailwindCSS

Infrastructure: AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker

AI/ML: Large Language Models, Speech To Text, Text To Speech

DevOps: GitHub Actions, Datadog

Why Join Us

Work with experienced founders who've built and scaled financial products for 9+ years

Work with a CTO with experience in all stages of engineering maturity from 0 to 1, mid-stage startups, all the way to large enterprise companies

Build something meaningful - this won’t be a 9-to-5. It will be intense, rewarding, and career-defining. You will own core customer relationships and parts of the technical stack from day one.

Shape the technical foundation of a product revolutionizing a $24BN market

Get unmatched career acceleration: you’ll be working directly with customers getting direct feedback and direction from customer needs.

Direct impact on product strategy and company direction

Work with cutting-edge technologies in AI, voice processing, and cloud infrastructure

Define engineering culture and practices from the ground up

See how well you match this job Apply on the employer’s site ↗

Check your resume against this job Free, no sign-up. Nothing you paste is stored.

Staying safe while you apply

Never pay to apply, interview or accept an offer. ROLIVA never asks you for payment to apply to a job.
Apply only through the official “Apply on the employer’s site” button, on the employer’s own site, and check that a recruiter’s email uses that employer’s own domain rather than a free email address.
Be cautious of an offer made with no real interview, or pressure to decide quickly or share financial details early.

Does something look wrong with this listing? Use “Report broken link” in the role details, or read ROLIVA’s full job-safety guidance ↗.

Preparing for this role with ROLIVA

Check the fit.
Compare the requirements with the experience you have confirmed, including gaps.
Prepare honestly.
Build interview stories and application drafts from your own evidence.
Keep track.
Save the role and record your own application status and follow-ups.

Create a free workspace or log in.