Senior Backend Cloud Engineer

Kai is the AI company rebuilding cybersecurity for the machine-speed era. Founded by second time founders and trusted by Fortune 500 enterprises, Kai is building a future where security has no categories, no silos, and no human speed bottlenecks. The Kai Agentic AI Platform replaces fragmented, human-limited workflows with agentic AI systems that continuously contextualize, assess, reason, and execute security work at machine speed - making human defenders, superhuman. Why Join Kai Well-funded: With $125M raised, we have the capital, runway, and resolve to rebuild cybersecurity from first principles.Proven: We've earned the trust of Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, and we're just getting started. Their confidence in Kai reflects what we've built: an AI-powered cybersecurity platform that performs at the scale and speed the enterprise demands.Experienced founders: Our founding team consists of second-time entrepreneurs, each with over 20 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry. Their proven expertise and vision drive our ambitious goals.World-class leadership team: Our Heads of AI, Engineering, and Product bring extensive experience from some of the world’s most influential companies, ensuring top-tier mentorship, direction, and vision.Frontier AI Applied Research Team: Our researchers operate at the leading edge of agentic AI systems, translating breakthrough capabilities into real-world cybersecurity applications.Generous compensation: We offer highly competitive salaries, equity options, and a supportive work environment. Your contributions will be valued and rewarded as we grow together. Responsibilities Collaborate with cross-functional teams, building cloud backends and data pipelinesDesign, build, and own microservices and distributed backend systems from architecture through deployment and production operationsLead technical delivery from architecture and design to implementation, testing, deployment, and operationsWork with product and design teams to deliver performant and reliable backend services and APIsChampion software development best practices, including CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, observability, and test automationEnsure reliability, scalability, and maintainability of backend and cloud systems at production scaleMentor engineers and foster a culture of ownership, learning, and continuous improvement within the engineering team Must Haves 7+ years of experience as a cloud or backend engineerExperience designing and building microservices in a production cloud environmentStrong understanding of distributed systems — fault tolerance, consistency, and scalability at production scaleStrong experience designing APIs and building asynchronous systems with robust error handlingHands-on experience with AWS, including serverless and cloud-native architecturesExperience with Azure services and Infrastructure as Code tools, such as API Management, Azure Functions, Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, Azure Active Directory, or Bicep/TerraformFamiliarity with data pipelines and cloud-native data streaming tools such as KinesisStrong Python experience for backend services, automation, and toolingGolang development experience for backend servicesExperience with AWS services and Infrastructure-as-Code tools, such as API Gateway, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, IAM, and CDKKnowledge of observability, tracing, and system performance best practices for distributed backend systemsExcellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with distributed teams Nice to Haves, Experience with data streaming tools such as KafkaExperience operating at scale — high-throughput, data-intensive, or large-scale distributed systemsCybersecurity domain experience — IAM, access control, security-adjacent products, or experience building for security teamsDesigning access control systems, such as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)Experience with version control, CI/CD, and build systems (e.g., GitHub Actions)Familiarity with compliance and security standards such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, or CPRA in cloud environmentsStartup experience and hustle Why You'll Succeed You take ownership end-to-end — from architecture and design through deployment and production supportYou move fast without breaking things — high-velocity delivery with a track record to prove itYou can mentor and elevate the engineers around youYou thrive in ambiguity and can independently execute complex tasks with minimal direction