Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer Location: San Francisco, CA (or Remote, if applicable) Employment Type: Full-time Experience: 4+ years Focus: Backend Engineering, AI-Native Analytics, Data Infrastructure, Distributed Systems About Our Client Our client is building the next generation of AI-native business intelligence. Their platform enables organizations to interact with business data using AI, transforming how teams analyze information, make decisions, and unlock insights. As a founding engineering hire, you'll help build the core infrastructure powering scalable, intelligent analytics for modern enterprises. This is an opportunity to join an early-stage, high-growth company where engineers have direct influence over the product, architecture, engineering culture, and technical roadmap. About the Role Our client is hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to help build the backend systems and data infrastructure that power their AI-native analytics platform. This is a highly collaborative, high-ownership role where you'll work across the entire product—not just a single service or team. You'll partner closely with founders, product, engineering, and customers to design scalable systems, build critical infrastructure, and shape the future of the platform. The ideal candidate enjoys solving complex backend problems, building distributed systems, and shipping production software in a fast-moving startup environment. What You'll Do Design, build, and scale large-scale data pipelines supporting latency-critical analytical workloadsBuild secure, reliable, and highly scalable backend systems on modern cloud infrastructureWork across the entire codebase and product rather than within a single engineering siloCollaborate directly with founders, product leaders, engineers, and customers to define product direction and technical prioritiesDesign backend services that support AI-powered analytics and business intelligence experiencesOptimize system performance, scalability, reliability, and infrastructure efficiencyOwn projects from architecture and implementation through production deployment and ongoing improvementHelp establish engineering best practices, technical standards, and the long-term technology stackContribute to building a high-performing engineering culture as an early member of the team What We're Looking For 4+ years of professional backend software engineering experienceStrong experience designing and building scalable backend systemsExperience building high-performance data pipelines or distributed systemsStrong understanding of cloud infrastructure and modern backend architectureExperience designing secure, reliable, and cost-efficient production systemsAbility to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment with high ownership and ambiguityStrong collaboration skills and comfort working directly with founders, customers, and cross-functional teamsPassion for building products from the ground up and influencing technical directionExcellent problem-solving skills and strong engineering fundamentals Bonus Experience Experience building AI-native products or data platformsExperience with business intelligence, analytics platforms, or large-scale data infrastructureExperience with distributed systems and low-latency data processingExperience working as a founding or early-stage engineerExperience designing cloud-native architectures on AWS, GCP, or AzureExperience working closely with enterprise customers to shape product direction Why This Opportunity Join a founding engineering team building a category-defining AI-native analytics platformWork directly with founders on product strategy, architecture, and engineering decisionsBuild scalable systems that power next-generation business intelligenceOwn projects end-to-end in a high-autonomy environmentHelp define the engineering culture, architecture, and technical roadmap from the earliest stagesCollaborate directly with customers to solve meaningful business problemsBuild at the intersection of AI, large-scale data systems, and enterprise software Ideal Candidate Profile The ideal candidate is a backend engineer who enjoys building foundational systems at an early-stage company. They combine strong distributed systems and data infrastructure experience with a product mindset and thrive in environments where they can influence both technical direction and business outcomes. They are excited to work across the stack when needed, collaborate closely with founders and customers, and help build a category-defining AI platform from the ground up.