Fora

Own root-cause analysis and execute integration test strategies across backend services and third-party APIs. | 7+ years backend QA experience with API testing, SQL proficiency, and root-cause analysis skills. | About Fora Fora is the modern travel agency, empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs to build thriving travel advisory businesses. We're modernizing the $100B+ travel industry with AI woven through every part of the advisor's workflow, plus global supplier relationships, personalized training, and a vibrant community, all in one place. That's what lets advisors build businesses that scale, while their taste and service create trips no algorithm alone could plan. At the heart of it all is our mission: to help the next generation of travel entrepreneurs turn their love for travel into a fulfilling career, whether full-time or part-time. The same idea shapes how we work. We're mission-driven and obsessed with our customers, and we believe humans and AI are both essential: the best work here comes from people and technology at their best, together. Founded in 2021, Fora has grown to a team of 200+ full-time employees based in downtown New York City. In 2026, we closed a $60 million Series D led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, with continued backing from Thrive Capital, Insight Partners, and Heartcore Capital. We've been named a LinkedIn Top Startup (2024), one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies (2023 and 2025), and one of TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies (2026). Come build something that hasn't existed before. About The Role We're looking for a Senior QA Engineer with 7+ years of experience across the full stack. Your strength is backend QA - integration testing, system-level validation, and data quality across connected services, but you also own frontend and end-to-end testing of the user experience. This role suits someone who wants to understand how the whole system fits together and why the data looks the way it does. If you are the one who goes looking for the problems that don't show up on the happy path, this is the role for you. You'll work closely with developers, product managers, and designers to test how things behave from the UI through the APIs down to the data: exercising APIs, following data across services, digging into edge cases, and staying involved in quality from planning through release. Our product changes constantly - new features ship often, and existing ones evolve based on user feedback. You'll make sure those changes hold up and ship at a high bar. Experience working with offshore teams is a plus. Key Responsibilities Investigation & Debugging: Own root-cause analysis for complex, cross-layer issues - tracking through UI -> API -> database -> dependent services rather than stopping at the surface. Investigate complex, hard-to-reproduce issues by piecing together information from logs, traces, and monitoring tools like Datadog and Sentry. Distinguish frontend from backend causes through payload, status-code, and data-flow analysis, and always ask "what would I check next?" API, Integration & Data Validation: Create and execute integration test strategies for backend services and third-party APIs, validating how components interact across systems. Use tools like Postman to explore, document, and validate APIs against functional, performance, and edge-case requirements. Comfortable reading and querying the database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.) to verify the application behaves correctly — understanding how data is structured across tables and confirming it matches what the system should have done. Get involved early in design discussions to ensure testability and reliability across the stack. Collaboration & Communication: Partner with engineering, product, and design teams to fully understand business logic, technical architecture, and domain-specific use cases. Provide thoughtful, detailed bug reports with clear steps to reproduce and meaningful business context. Participate in sprint ceremonies (planning, grooming, retrospectives) and serve as a quality advocate throughout the development cycle. Ask questions, challenge assumptions, and promote a culture of continuous improvement in testing and delivery processes. Quality Mindset & Domain Awareness: Approach testing with high attention to detail, proactively identifying edge cases, data anomalies, and system-level inconsistencies before they reach production. Demonstrate a creative and curious mindset - not just validating requirements, but actively looking for what might break or be missed. Embrace AI as part of the job - open to integrating AI tools into day-to-day QA workflows to test faster, dig deeper, and work smarter. Develop a strong understanding of the workflows across the pods you support to better anticipate risk areas and ensure domain-appropriate validation. Own quality end to end, from requirements through post-release validation, and keep raising the bar on how thoroughly we test. Requirements 7+ years of experience in backend quality assurance with strong focus on integration testing, system behavior, and data validation. Proficiency in API testing tools such as Postman or REST clients; able to design and execute exploratory and regression test plans. Strong SQL skills; experience querying relational databases and validating data across interconnected tables. Familiarity with asynchronous systems and contract testing concepts. Strong analytical thinking and debugging skills, especially in complex data-driven workflows. Proven ability to root-cause ambiguous failures using logs and observability tools. Openness to working with AI and integrating AI-assisted tools into everyday testing workflows. Excellent communication and documentation skills. Experience working with remote or offshore teams is a plus. Compensation Compensation for this role varies based on experience, with an indicative range of $110K–$140K + equity. Final compensation will depend on the level at which the candidate is hired, as we are considering multiple levels for this role. Unlimited vacation Health Insurance (including an option completely covered by Fora HQ) Dental & Vision Insurance Wellhub Memberships 401k plan with company match Commuter Benefits Supplemental Life Insurance Stock Options This role is based in New York City with a hybrid WFH & office schedule (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are our FiDi in-office days, with flexibility for Wednesday and Friday at your preference). Our Values We’re forging our own path Fora has always been about driving change within the industry. We’re not interested in maintaining the status quo. We’re stronger together Community is our cornerstone and collective power is our strength. We believe we can all go further when we operate together, using our combined leverage to unlock better opportunities and outcomes for our advisors, partners, and travelers. We believe in technology We believe technology is an answer to some of the most fundamental challenges the travel industry faces. We believe advancements in AI, bold investments in our platforms, and a world-class data infrastructure will transform the work of our advisors and our partners, while creating better travel experiences for travelers. We’re here to serve We operate in service of our community and believe that when they’re empowered to focus on what they do best, we all win. It’s why we relentlessly advocate for our advisors and prioritize their best interest every step of the way. We mean business Fora is equal parts fun, meaningful work and serious travel business. We’re unlocking opportunities for thousands of travel entrepreneurs, delivering a stream of high-quality guests at scale for our partners, and providing a superior travel experience for our travelers. It’s a better equation for the future of our industry. WORK AUTHORIZATION Authorization to work in the United States is required for full-time roles based in our New York City office. Fora is unable to sponsor or assist with U.S. work authorization. Roles based outside of the United States are not subject to this requirement. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Fora is committed to an equitable hiring process and an inclusive work environment. BIPOC and traditionally underrepresented candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. We will not discriminate and will take action to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or any other characteristic protected by law.

Lead and scale foundational platform systems ensuring reliability, scalability, and developer experience. | 5+ years engineering with 2+ years platform engineering, proficient in AWS, Terraform, PostgreSQL, message queues, and container orchestration. | About Fora Fora is the modern travel agency, empowering anyone with a passion for travel to build a thriving advisory business. We're modernizing the $100B+ travel agency industry by combining powerful technology, data, and community to enable thousands of entrepreneurs to build on our platform. Our business-in-a-box platform gives travel entrepreneurs everything they need to launch and scale, from cutting-edge tools and personalized training to a vibrant community and exclusive industry partnerships. At the heart of it all is our mission: to help the next generation of travel entrepreneurs turn their love for travel into a fulfilling career, whether full-time or part-time. We believe that everyone, from seasoned professionals to first-time advisors, can build something both profitable and personal. Founded in 2021 by seasoned entrepreneurs, Fora has grown steadily since, expanding to a team of 200+ full-time employees based in downtown New York City. In 2025, we announced our $60 million Series B and C investment rounds, led by Thrive Capital and Insight Partners, with participation by previous investors including Forerunner and Heartcore Capital. We've also been recognized as a LinkedIn Top Startup 2024, Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2025 and 2023, and Built In 2025 Best Places to Work. We're building the first truly unified platform for all travel needs—leveraging the best of human expertise and technology to transform how people plan and book travel. About The Role We’re looking for an experienced Senior/Staff Software engineer to lead and scale the foundational systems that power Fora’s platform. In this role, you’ll own the reliability, scalability, and developer experience of our infrastructure — including CI/CD pipelines, cloud architecture, observability systems, and core platform security. You’ll partner closely with Engineering, and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure our systems are fast, secure, and built to scale with our business. Our ideal candidate is a mission-aligned leader with a strong track record of building high scale and secure platforms, an understanding of devops, data pipelines and distributed systems, and a passion for scaling both products and teams. Key Responsibilities Optimize database performance and reliability, managing PostgreSQL configurations, connection pooling, timeout settings, and query performance at scale. Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that enable rapid, safe deployments with progressive rollout capabilities and automated rollback mechanisms. Manage message queue infrastructure including RabbitMQ and Celery workers, ensuring optimal throughput and preventing memory pressure issues. Build developer tools and platforms that accelerate engineering velocity, including feature flag systems, development environments, and debugging tools. Implement infrastructure as code using Terraform, ensuring all infrastructure changes are versioned, reviewed, and reproducible. Architect and implement monitoring and observability solutions using Datadog, CloudWatch, and custom metrics to ensure comprehensive system visibility. Drive security and compliance initiatives, including secrets management, network segmentation. Partner with engineering teams to establish SLOs, implement proper error budgets, and ensure services meet reliability targets. Design and maintain our container orchestration layer, bonus if familiar with Kubernetes. Requirements 5+ years of experience in engineering, at least 2 in platform engineering Strong experience with AWS services (EKS, RDS, ALB/ELB, SQS, CloudWatch, IAM) Proven track record with infrastructure as code tools (Terraform preferred) Experience with PostgreSQL administration including performance tuning, replication, and connection management Experience with message queue systems (RabbitMQ, Kafka, Celery, or similar) Proficiency with monitoring and observability tools (Datadog, Prometheus, or similar APM solutions) Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies (blue-green, canary, feature flags) Understanding of security best practices including secrets management, network security, and compliance requirements Expertise with container orchestration in production environments, including cluster management, networking, and troubleshooting (Kubernetes preferred) Excellent communication skills with ability to explain complex infrastructure concepts to diverse audiences Experience with cost optimization and capacity planning for cloud infrastructure Strongly Preferred Experience with high-traffic B2B2C platforms or marketplace architectures. Compensation Compensation for this role varies based on experience, with an indicative range of $155K–$225K + equity. Final compensation will depend on the level at which the candidate is hired, as we’re considering multiple levels for this role. Unlimited vacation Health Insurance (including an option completely covered by Fora HQ) Dental & Vision Insurance Wellhub Memberships 401k plan with company match Commuter Benefits Supplemental Life Insurance Stock Options This role is based in New York City with a hybrid WFH & office schedule (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are our Tribeca in-office days, with flexibility for Wednesday and Friday at your preference). Our Values We’re forging our own path Fora has always been about driving change within the industry. We’re not interested in maintaining the status quo. We’re stronger together Community is our cornerstone and collective power is our strength. We believe we can all go further when we operate together, using our combined leverage to unlock better opportunities and outcomes for our advisors, partners, and travelers. We believe in technology We believe technology is an answer to some of the most fundamental challenges the travel industry faces. We believe advancements in AI, bold investments in our platforms, and a world-class data infrastructure will transform the work of our advisors and our partners, while creating better travel experiences for travelers. We’re here to serve We operate in service of our community and believe that when they’re empowered to focus on what they do best, we all win. It’s why we relentlessly advocate for our advisors and prioritize their best interest every step of the way. We mean business Fora is equal parts fun, meaningful work and serious travel business. We’re unlocking opportunities for thousands of travel entrepreneurs, delivering a stream of high-quality guests at scale for our partners, and providing a superior travel experience for our travelers. It’s a better equation for the future of our industry. WORK AUTHORIZATION Authorization to work in the United States is required for full-time roles based in our New York City office. Fora is unable to sponsor or assist with U.S. work authorization. Roles based outside of the United States are not subject to this requirement. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Fora is committed to an equitable hiring process and an inclusive work environment. BIPOC and traditionally underrepresented candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. We will not discriminate and will take action to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or any other characteristic protected by law.