Founding Backend Software Engineer

About the Role

Join a small engineering team building AI-powered video products. In this founding backend role, you will lead the design of scalable systems and help establish technical standards as the product and team grow.

What You'll Do

• Design and develop scalable backend systems for AI-powered video creation.

• Build infrastructure for agentic workflows, video generation pipelines, reinforcement learning loops, and real-time data processing.

• Own distributed systems architecture and improve reliability through automated testing, performance benchmarking, and end-to-end observability.

• Partner with researchers, engineers, and designers to deliver product features and APIs.

• Set technical direction and engineering standards, write clear documentation, and communicate decisions effectively.

What We're Looking For

• Five to ten years of backend software engineering experience, including work at an early-stage or high-growth startup.

• Industry experience building scalable backend and distributed systems, large-scale data processing, information retrieval, and asynchronous workflows.

• At least 12 months of industry experience designing and building agentic systems or working with LLMs and generative AI.

• Professional experience with TypeScript and AWS. The broader stack includes S3, Lambda, RDS, SQS, ECS, FastAPI, Docker, and CI/CD.

• Experience as a technical lead, setting direction and code standards, plus strong fundamentals in algorithms, data structures, and system design.

• A formal degree and fluency in written and spoken English.

Compensation & Benefits

Annual salary: $225,000 to $275,000 USD. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California.