AI Engineer for Agentic Systems & Backend

Build AI agents that do real work. Layest is building the operating agentic system for regulated enterprises in the financial industry. Our AI agents execute real operational workflows across systems in environments where reliability, permissions, auditability and security matter. We are looking for an AI Engineer with strong backend expertise and hands-on experience in applied AI to build and scale these systems together with our founding team. This is not an architecture-only role. You will design systems, write code, ship to production and own the outcome. What you'll own Build and ship production-grade AI agents end to end – from customer problem to architecture, implementation and deployment.Advance our agentic systems with long-term memory, stateful workflows, loops, tool use, caching, context management and reliable execution.Build the reliability layer around our agents, including evaluations, observability, permission boundaries, failure handling and human-in-the-loop mechanisms.Turn complex customer requirements into simple, scalable product capabilities instead of one-off solutions.Own critical backend architecture across APIs, integrations, data flows, persistence and infrastructure.Help shape Layest's technical architecture, engineering practices and product roadmap. You will thrive in this role if You have designed and shipped complex backend systems in production and are comfortable owning both architecture and implementation.You have built LLM-powered or agentic systems beyond prototypes.You understand modern AI/ML engineering and know when to use models, deterministic software, retrieval, tools or traditional approaches.You make pragmatic trade-offs between reliability, speed, scalability, security and complexity without overengineering.You are strongly product-minded and can quickly translate customer needs into practical technical solutions.You learn fast, take ownership naturally and enjoy working in a high-speed startup environment with short decision cycles. Relevant experience Experience with some of the following is highly valuable: LangChain or comparable orchestration frameworks · Typescript/Node.js · agentic workflows · tool calling · memory architectures · LLM evaluations · RAG · relational databases · caching and queues · cloud infrastructure · security and permission models Experience in fintech, accounting, financial services or other regulated environments is a strong plus. Why Layest You will work directly with the founders on one of the most relevant challenges in applied AI: making autonomous agents dependable enough to operate inside real enterprises. You will have substantial ownership over the systems you build and influence our technical architecture, product direction and engineering culture. What we offer €85,000–€100,000 gross annual salary as a starting range, with willingness to overpay depending on experience and impactEquity participation opportunityDirect collaboration with the founding teamHigh ownership and significant influence on product and technologyFast decision-making and minimal bureaucracyVienna-based team with on-site collaboration strongly preferred Interested? Send us your CV or LinkedIn profile and, ideally, your GitHub or examples of systems you have built. No traditional cover letter required. Instead, tell us briefly about an AI or backend system you have shipped, what made it challenging and one technical decision you would approach differently today. We care more about what you can build, how you think and what you take ownership of than about collecting credentials.