Senior Backend Engineer

About the job This is a job that Navii, our AI Recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers. Navii helps the hiring team learn more about the candidates beyond the resume. You can speak with Navii here about the role. About the Company Arbor AI is VC-backed and being built by three founders with 25+ years of Google Ads experience across monetization, infrastructure, high-performance ads systems, and UX. You’ll join a small, in-office team focused on performance, measurement rigor, and building the core technical blocks that let the product scale. You’ll work closely with founders on architecture, hiring, and technical strategy—so your decisions land quickly and matter. About the Role As a Senior Founding Software Engineer (Backend, Infrastructure & Measurement), you’ll build the low-latency serving and delivery systems that power monetization—then back them with measurement you can trust. This is a first ~10 employees role where you’ll help shape the technical foundation, engineering quality, and day-to-day execution style from the ground up. Responsibilities Own major backend systems end-to-end, including: Low-latency serving and decisioning: request handling, ranking, and auction flows that stay fast under real traffic.Delivery infrastructure that merchants can rely on: targeting, pacing, campaign management, and the plumbing that turns decisions into outcomes.Measurement that doesn’t lie: attribution, reporting, incrementality, and experimentation systems built for correctness and operational sanity.Platform architecture for performance and reliability: scalability, throughput, and production excellence—latency and correctness are both non-negotiable.AI-accelerated engineering practices: use AI to speed up design/debug/iteration while keeping engineering judgment and rigor intact.Founder-level partnership and team leverage: collaborate directly with founders on architecture and hiring, and help raise engineering quality across the team. Qualifications Strong computer science fundamentals and the ability to turn them into production-grade systems.Proven backend + distributed systems experience, especially in high-throughput environments.Experience building or scaling low-latency, high-QPS systems with real operational ownership.Production engineering and debugging depth—you can protect correctness even when speed is tempting.Ability to own a technical component end-to-end, from design through rollout and ongoing reliability. Required Skills Experience with ads infrastructure (serving, auctions, targeting, measurement/attribution).Experience with large-scale data infrastructure (streaming, batch, reporting) and monetization/real-time decisioning systems. Preferred Skills Experience with ads infrastructure (serving, auctions, targeting, measurement/attribution).Experience with large-scale data infrastructure (streaming, batch, reporting) and monetization/real-time decisioning systems. Pay range and compensation package Competitive salary in the range of $160K–$220KMeaningful early-stage equityHealth, dental, and vision insurancePaid time offProfessional development support Note: The compensation range reflects our good-faith estimate of the base salary for this role. Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, skills, interview performance, and expected scope of ownership. Equal Opportunity Statement If you’ve built and scaled backend infrastructure in any domain where latency, correctness, and measurement are hard (ads, marketplaces, payments, real-time decisioning, etc.), we want to hear from you. How to Apply Interested? You’ll start with a conversation with Navii, our hiring team’s AI—it's a chance for us to learn about you beyond your resume.