Description

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Backend Engineer to build and scale customer-facing products powered by modern backend technologies and artificial intelligence.

This role is ideal for a high-agency engineer with strong Python expertise, a product-oriented mindset, and experience building production-ready software in an early-stage startup environment. The successful candidate will take ownership of projects from concept to deployment, design reliable AI agents, and help shape the company's technical direction.

The ideal candidate combines strong engineering fundamentals with entrepreneurial thinking, thrives in fast-paced environments, and can make sound technical decisions with minimal supervision.

Work Arrangement: This is a remote-friendly position. Candidates must be willing to travel periodically to the company's offices in San Francisco or Toronto for in-person collaboration.

Key Responsibilities

Design, develop, and deploy customer-facing backend features from initial scoping through production.

Build and improve LLM-powered agents capable of reasoning over complex organizational data.

Design scalable backend architectures, APIs, data models, and supporting tools.

Make critical technical decisions and establish engineering standards for code quality, reliability, and maintainability.

Lead high-impact projects independently, taking ownership from planning through delivery.

Collaborate with the founding team to translate customer needs into effective technical solutions.

Support customer engagements involving organizations ranging from hundreds to thousands of employees.

Use AI-powered coding tools to improve development speed and productivity while maintaining strong engineering judgment.

Contribute to product strategy and help guide the company's technical roadmap.

Required Qualifications

At least 5 years of backend engineering experience, with a strong focus on customer-facing products.

Proven experience working at a top-tier startup at Series B or earlier, or experience as a founder.

Demonstrated success building and shipping production-grade, customer-facing software at scale.

Deep expertise in Python for production backend development.

Strong knowledge of backend architecture, system design, and distributed systems.

Proficiency in API design and SQL-based data stores.

Hands-on experience building applications with Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, or agentic frameworks.

Experience leading ambiguous, high-impact technical projects from conception to delivery.

Ability to work across the product development lifecycle rather than focusing exclusively on infrastructure.

Strong product mindset, with the ability to connect engineering decisions to customer needs and business outcomes.

Excellent problem-solving skills, sound technical judgment, and the ability to work autonomously in a fast-moving environment.

Preferred Qualifications

Direct experience working with customers to understand requirements and deliver solutions.

Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and AI agent frameworks.

Familiarity with distributed systems and platform engineering.

Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools.

Experience working closely with founders and contributing to product direction in an early-stage company.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is an independent, product-minded engineer who enjoys solving complex problems, moving quickly, and building products that deliver measurable customer value.

Candidates whose experience is primarily limited to infrastructure, DevOps, data pipelines, or machine learning research, without evidence of building customer-facing products, may not be a good fit.

Compensation and Equity

Annual salary: $190,000–$300,000

Meaningful founding-level equity

Full-time employment

Remote-friendly working arrangement with periodic in-person collaboration

Work Authorization

Candidates should have existing authorization to work in the United States or Canada, as the company strongly prefers applicants who do not require visa sponsorship. Sponsorship availability is limited and assessed on a case-by-case basis.

How to Apply

Interested candidates with strong Python backend engineering experience, a proven startup background, and hands-on experience building AI-powered products are encouraged to apply.

Please submit your resume highlighting relevant backend engineering projects, production deployments, startup experience, and LLM or AI agent development.

Key Skills

Education

Deep Python expertise for production backend systems