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We sat down with Harshita Kaushal, Staff Software Engineer on the Money team on her five year SoFi-versary. What began as a journey of curiosity has evolved into a career defined by high-impact technical leadership. Most recently, Harshita stood at the helm of the engineering team that brought Smart Card to life, a project that wasn't just a technical feat, but a mission-driven effort to help members get their money right. Harshita discusses the intensity of the launch, the shift in her leadership philosophy, and why she believes mastering your craft is the most powerful antidote to self-doubt.
Financial Literacy via Engineering
For Harshita, SmartCard was personal. Designed to offer the rewards of a credit card but collateralized by a checking and savings account, the product provides a crucial safety net for those building credit, a necessary step because without a solid credit history, lenders may deny a mortgage application or charge predatory interest rates on student loans.
"I enjoyed this project because I align ethically with the function of this product" Harshita explains. "A lot of people need financial literacy and control. With SmartCard, you can’t spend more than what you actually have in your bank. It’s about helping people get back on their feet."
Leading Through New Architecture Shift
Launching SmartCard wasn't just about building a new feature; it was about navigating a massive architectural migration. Harshita found herself in a unique position having to learn and teach a new architecture to her team. Despite having only six months of experience with the new architecture herself, she was effectively the veteran on the team.
"It was like being asked to teach a language I was still learning myself; I had to pick it up and pass it on simultaneously, which ultimately proved to be an invaluable exercise in figuring out my leadership style."
Harshita led a team of seven engineers, owning the end-to-end scope of account and card management, everything from creating accounts to real-time transaction history. The scale was immense, leading to startup-style 8:00 PM nights in our Salt Lake City office and intense collaboration across the Money and Credit Card organizations.
Focusing on Mastery: A New Approach to Confidence
As a woman in tech, Harshita offers a practical shift in how we view "imposter syndrome." Rather than focusing on the feeling of inadequacy, she encourages us to lean into our technical expertise as the ultimate source of confidence.
"I’ve found that constantly talking about imposter syndrome can sometimes keep us stuck in a cycle of doubt," she explains. "A more helpful approach is remembering that you've earned your seat at the table. When you deeply understand the systems you’re working on, that knowledge becomes your shield. My mentor once told me this and it changed my perspective entirely. During the SmartCard launch, my first time leading a team of this scale, it was my architectural knowledge that kept me grounded. Once we give ourselves the grace to truly master our craft, the work becomes less about proving ourselves and more about the joy of doing a great job."
The AI-Augmented Engineer
While some fear the "AI takeover," Harshita has embraced it as a force multiplier. From using AI Companion to capture complex architectural changes in meetings to leveraging Claude Code to automate tedious infrastructure scripts, she views AI as a teammate that handles the error-prone and tedious so she can focus on the prod-ready logic.
"AI handles the tedious — I stay focused on the architecture and the decisions that actually matter." she notes. She noticed that roughly 70 engineers across the org were each manually executing an eight-step environment configuration process involving Kubernetes changes—repetitive, error-prone work that stood between every engineer testing their code. Rather than get blocked by infrastructure work outside her core domain, she used Claude Code to build the script, collapsed the entire process into a single command, updated the documentation, and shared it across the org. Engineers were thanking her in Slack within minutes. "It saves every engineer time. But you still have to be the pilot—you can't just take an 'AI swap' and call it a day."
The Race to the Finish
Crossing the finish line was a test of resilience. As with any large-scale launch, challenges arose at the final hour; and despite the late-night hurdles, the team stayed the course, deploying the final adjustments just in time for go-live and delivering exactly what they set out to achieve.
"That's the beauty of the collaboration here," she says. "We had a milestone, we were committed, and we reached it. Seeing myself grow as a leader through that—mentoring people while delivering something this large—has been the most rewarding part of my five years here."
