About the role

At Vanta, our mission is to help businesses earn and prove trust. We believe that security should be monitored and verified continuously, and we empower companies to practice better security and prove it with ease. Vanta has a kind and talented team, and while some have prior security experience, many have been successful at Vanta without it. Vanta’s team and technology surface are growing quickly, and it’s essential that we invest in the right abstractions and systems to enable us to scale with our business. As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll be responsible for setting technical direction to enable our product and infrastructure to scale with our business, driving complex projects across our technical stack, and mentoring our talented engineering team. Your past experience will be leveraged to enable and accelerate Vanta’s growth. Our business has found incredible product-market fit and has monetized effectively since the day we signed our first customer. We’re growing at a blistering pace, which presents career-defining opportunities for engineers to accelerate their growth and to contribute to a rapidly-scaling company. The GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) organization is the primary org responsible for developing and maintaining Vanta's core product offerings. These teams are at the heart of Vanta moving upmarket to support enterprise customers and build products that enable our customers’ existing security and compliance programs to integrate seamlessly with Vanta, giving them invaluable insights and recommendations to continue to operate, mature and evolve their programs. As a Staff Software Engineer at Vanta, you will play a critical role in driving the long-term technical strategy, leading complex initiatives, and making high-impact decisions that affect your product area and the broader engineering organization. You will set the tone for engineering excellence and culture. This role involves a mix of hands-on development, leadership, strategic thinking, and cross-functional collaboration. You will work closely with engineering leadership and product teams to ensure the alignment of systems with Vanta’s technical strategy, and you will actively influence key decisions across the organization. Visit our Vanta Engineering Blog to learn more about what our team is working on! What you’ll do as a Staff Software Engineer at Vanta: Identify, scope, and lead large technical projects, laying the groundwork for building highly performant, reliable, and customizable systems with long-term impact. Drive a portfolio of complex initiatives with a duration spanning multiple quarters, ensuring iterative and sustainable impact across product areas. Rally cross-functional teams to drive initiatives to completion, even without direct management of team members. Make strategic decisions that prioritize long-term success, while influencing Vanta’s technical direction alongside senior engineers and leadership. Champion engineering excellence by continuously improving processes, methodologies, and technical practices across the organization. Guide teams on tough technical decisions, balancing tradeoffs and resolving conflicts. Address product, technical, and operational challenges with clear, impactful solutions. Serve as a cultural leader, modeling collaborative behaviors and mentoring engineers to elevate organizational performance. How to be successful in this role: Over 10 years of industry experience with deep expertise in one or more technical areas (e.g., frontend, databases, distributed systems, APIs, AI, etc.). Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives, driving strategic projects and improving organizational processes in fast-paced, dynamic environments. Mastery in system design and software architecture, with a strong ability to balance technical considerations and execution constraints. Extensive experience building user-facing SaaS products, catering to both startup and enterprise users. Expertise in building 0→1 products and solving large-scale challenges, especially in environments that prioritize a bias for action. Strong leadership and mentorship experience, consistently up-leveling teams and leading by example. Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence and advocate for technical decisions at all levels of the organization. Open to using AI to amplify their skills and strengthen their work - demonstrating curiosity, a willingness to learn, and sound judgment in applying AI responsibly to improve efficiency and impact. What you can expect as a Vanta’n: Industry-competitive salary and equity Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with 100% of employee-only benefit premiums covered for most medical plans 16 weeks fully-paid Parental Leave for all new parents Health & wellness stipend Remote workspace, internet, and cellphone stipend Commuter

About Vanta

About Vanta
Vanta (YC W18) is the leading automated compliance and trust management platform designed to simplify and centralize compliance and security workflows for organizations of all sizes.

Why YC Startups Need Vanta
As a YC company, proving your security compliance is crucial for hitting new milestones—from finding product market fit, to selling to bigger customers. We would know, we’ve been there—and we’ve helped over 10,000 customers do just that! Vanta's all-in-one solution, combined with expert service partners, helps you quickly and painlessly achieve and maintain compliance with top frameworks—like SOC 2 and ISO 27001—and build a strong security foundation, so you can close bigger deals and scale faster. Learn more at vanta.com.

YC Companies get Exclusive Discounts on Vanta’s packages:
Vanta’s packages for startups are designed to make security and compliance easier, faster, and more cost-effective. Whether you’re closing your first deal or gearing up for growth, our all-in-one solution provides the tools necessary to become compliant quickly, demonstrate your security posture, and build a strong security foundation.

Why Vanta?

Built for startups: Vanta knows startups. We went through YC in 2018 and have since helped thousands of startups, including YC companies Supabase (YC S20), Fern (YC W23), and Newfront (YC W18) achieve and maintain compliance quickly. Startups like Charityvest (YC S20), BreachRX, and Flo Health have gone from zero to SOC 2 Type I or ISO 27001 certification in 10 days or less with Vanta.

Future-proof, feature-rich, automated platform: Vanta’s modular platform is built for the needs of today and tomorrow, including:

35+ frameworks spanning security, privacy, industry, geographic, and custom frameworks
375+ integrations that automate evidence collection for these frameworks
1,200+ automated, hourly tests to ensure real, continuous security—not just at audit time, but all the time
Pre-built policy templates, lightweight agent for security checks, background checks, cyber insurance, cookie consent management, auditor portal, user access reviews, security awareness training, risk assessments, vendor security reviews, managing vulnerabilities, and more
Tailored support for early-stage companies: Vanta offers internal, no-cost Customer Success and GRC (compliance) experts, robust technical support, detailed documentation, and a 24/7 chatbot for frequently asked questions.
(Optional) Purchase Vanta with auditors experienced in your framework and the Vanta platform, or choose from a range of MSP/consulting partners for additional services like penetration tests and virtual CISO support—some at no cost. We don’t force vendor lock-in.
Transparent pricing and promises: Vanta strives to do what it says on the tin: we believe in setting and meeting customer expectations. We offer flexible contracts, fair and transparent pricing, and publish our support metrics. We prefer to focus on helping customers succeed and let them explain why they chose us over others—check out our G2 reviews and customer case studies!

Proven market leader and well-funded: Vanta was founded in 2018 and has raised $350M with over 700 employees. We’ve guided over 10,000 customers through their first or multiple audit cycles for various frameworks. These customer learnings and our funding help drive a fast pace of product development to delight customers and ensure Vanta will be there for you in the future.

Interested in seeing why Upflow (YC W20), Tailor (YC S22), and hundreds of other YC companies trust Vanta to automate compliance so they can focus on scaling? Reach out to our team at [email protected] to get started!

Staff Software Engineer, GRC

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