About River
What is River?
River is building the world's most trusted financial institution with bitcoin at its core — "to accelerate the return to sound money." In founder Alex Leishman's words: "I founded River in 2019 to build the bitcoin bank of the world. Bitcoin is becoming the world's dominant reserve asset. As it does, it creates a new foundation for financial institutions built on sound money with trust at their core. River is that institution."
The product spans Bitcoin investing, Bitcoin Interest on Cash, Banking, Zero-fee recurring buys, and a transparent Proof of Reserves that lets clients verify River's full-reserve cold-storage custody. River publishes both reserves and public financials so clients can verify the company's financial health themselves — "the gold standard for financial institutions."
The vision is explicit: "Bitcoin will unlock a prosperous future. Saving in bitcoin will become the norm — every person and business will store their wealth in bitcoin. We're entering a dual money era — in the future, people will increasingly save in bitcoin, but still spend dollars."
River has raised more than $50 million from leading investors, including Goldcrest, Kingsway, Polychain, M13, DG, and Valor.
Where will I work?
River is headquartered in San Francisco, with the engineering and product team distributed in California. Open roles include Staff Software Engineer (Elixir/React/Postgres stack) and other product/engineering positions.
What is the River team like?
The leadership team is publicly listed on the about page: Alex Leishman (Founder, CEO & CTO), Julia Duzon (COO), James Page (CPO), Bill Mongan (General Counsel), Cem Paya (CSO), Joe Bryan (Director of Finance), Ellen Weaver (Director of People), and Sam Wouters (Director of Marketing). The engineering bar is high — the Staff Software Engineer JD looks for someone who is "comfortable across the entire web stack and has experience building and maintaining production systems at scale. This person will be a leader on our engineering team, setting a high bar for quality and acting as a mentor to others."
The team obsessively designs and builds "delightful products that help our clients buy, sell, secure, and use bitcoin."
Work-Life Balance
River offers Unlimited PTO with parental leave separate from the regular PTO policy — so leave doesn't count against your time-off balance. The team is small and focused (3 active roles at time of writing), with a strong technical leadership team.
Perks and Benefits
- Unlimited PTO
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits
- Parental leave separate from regular PTO policy
- 401(k) plan
- Transparent company financials — River publishes reserves and financials publicly
- NMLS-licensed financial institution (NMLS ID#1906809)