Software Engineer

About TaxHawk

TaxHawk, Inc. is the company behind FreeTaxUSA, one of the most trusted and widely used online tax preparation platforms in the country. We help millions of Americans prepare and file their taxes accurately and affordably every year. As we continue to grow, we're building our in-house software engineering team to support the full range of our business and product needs.

Job Summary

Every spring, millions of people trust us with the most sensitive numbers in their lives, and most of them show up in the same six weeks. An engineer on our team works with AI to design, develop, test, and maintain the Java and Python services on AWS that get a filer's documents into our products. That means document import — taking a photo or PDF of a tax form and extracting the data to prefill the app — and continuing to build on MyTaxFiles, our live product for uploading and storing tax and financial documents. This team also serves as security champions for the wider dev team, and is building the interfaces that will let users reach the tax app from outside it.

Key Responsibilities

• Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code in Java and Python
• Work together with AI to build and improve document extraction — turning uploaded forms into structured data the app can use
• Ship new features on My Tax Files and maintain the services, APIs, and storage behind users' uploaded documents on AWS
• Build programmatic and agent-facing interfaces that let users work with their tax data outside the main app
• Triage and remediate GitLab SAST findings
• Act as a security champion for the wider dev team — promote secure coding practices, share what you learn, and raise the floor for everyone
• Own features from technical design through production support
• Write and maintain tests for logic where being wrong has consequences for filers
• Participate in code reviews and technical discussions
• Debug and optimize application performance, including under seasonal load
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, and other engineers

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent experience
• Roughly 3+ years of professional backend development, or equivalent demonstrated experience
• Proficiency in Java or Python, and willingness to work in both
• Working knowledge of relational databases, SQL, and HTTP API design
• A security instinct — you think about how a feature could be abused before it ships, not after
• Understanding of software development lifecycle and version control
• Clear written communication —you'll be explaining security findings to engineers who didn't write the code
• Be enjoyable to be around, be direct, but be kind

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with AWS services in production
• Experience with document processing, OCR, or extracting structured data from unstructured input
• Familiar with AI models and how to use them effectively, including for extraction and classification tasks
• Experience working with SAST or other static analysis tooling — triaging findings, cutting false positives, integrating into CI
• Application security experience — secure code review, threat modeling, or OWASP Top 10 remediation
• Experience building or securing file upload and storage systems
• Experience in a regulated domain handling sensitive personal or financial data

What We Offer

• Competitive Pay – Starting salary depends on experience
• Generous Benefits, Health Insurance, and PTO
• 4% 401K Match and 401K Profit Sharing Contributions
• Work-life balance is supported and encouraged