Software Engineering Residency 2025

Company details

Description of the offer

Founded in 2018, Persona is a 250-person tech startup based in San Francisco, backed by Index Ventures, Coatue, Founders Fund, and First Round Capital. Persona offers flexible building blocks that help businesses fight fraud, stay compliant, and build trust among their customers. For example, Coursera uses Persona to ensure the right person is earning each degree, OpenAI uses Persona to prevent the misuse of ChatGPT, and Lime checks the ages of customers before they ride electric scooters or bikes. To learn more, check out this short video.

About the role
Our engineers have a significant impact on our product and customers; they have full deploy access and push code into production from day one. You will work on projects that span technologies, systems, and processes where you will design, test, and ship great code every day. The work you do will affect Persona, our customers, and their users. Throughout your time here you will be working with our engineering, design, and product team on important features, communicating with our customers, and helping us build Persona! We offer extensive opportunities for mentorship with formal and informal mentorship from some of the best engineers in the industry.

This position is based in San Francisco where the team is in-office Tuesday – Thursday with the option to work from home Monday and Friday. We offer relocation support for those based outside of San Francisco Bay Area.

About the Program

• Our Software Engineering Residency is a 3-month immersive experience designed for aspiring engineers who have limited software engineering work experience but want to explore a career in software engineering. You’ll learn foundational principles from seasoned engineers and gain exposure to real-world engineering challenges. This will set you up for success as you help design, build, and ship critical components of our identity platform. From tackling small-scale tasks to solving complex data problems, you may even work directly with customers to develop solutions that combat fraud and make the internet safer.

What you’ll bring to Persona

• Innovative mindset – You go beyond implementing what is tasked and make product suggestions and features that help push our product forward. You are naturally curious and embrace change.
• Independent thinking – You can turn around features within days because you learn from your mistakes quickly, and know how to unblock yourself if you get stuck. You give yourself agency to take on new problems and drive them to impactful solutions.
• People first – You care not just about the code, but the real-world impact your work can have on people. You are excited about building products that real people use, every day.
• Continuous learner – You have a hunger for knowledge. You’re driven to continuously improve your skills, whether mastering new programming languages or diving deep into emerging technologies.
• Collaborative spirit – Collaboration isn’t just a buzzword for you, it’s your secret to success. You leverage the diverse perspectives of your teammates and sometimes go out of your way to learn other functions to get the job done.

What you’ll gain from the Program

• Hands-on experience: Solve challenging problems that directly impact our platform and customers
• Mentorship: Receive direct mentorship from industry veterans, including former engineers from Square, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Coursera
• Fast-track to full-time: Excel in the residency? Join us as a full-time engineer
• Collaborative culture: Gain exposure to working with design, product, customer success, and solutions engineering to build and ship features
• Why this is exciting? This Residency is more than just a learning experience. You’ll be part of a fast-growing startup with fewer than 100 engineers, where you’ll help ship features from day one and work alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry. Our in-person teams in San Francisco create a collaborative environment where you’ll build products that make a real difference. This is a unique opportunity to accelerate your career as a software engineer connecting technical challenges to drive successful business outcomes. If you’re driven, curious, and ready to tackle complex problems, we want to hear from you.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging

At Persona, we strive to put diversity and inclusion at the forefront of everything we do, reflecting our core values. Our DEIB Employee Resource Group seeks to build a diverse and inclusive team that fosters an environment where each Personerd feels empowered to bring their unique differences to work and achieve their full innovative potential. Our hope is that by fostering such an environment, we strengthen our business and relationships by putting people first.

We strive to promote a culture that celebrates diversity and inclusiveness regardless of but not limited to, race, gender, sexual orientation, family status, religion, ethnicity, national origin, physical disability, veteran status, or age.

Location of employment

How to apply?