Backend Engineer High-Volume Data Processing

Location: Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY Work Arrangement: Onsite, 5 days per week (required) Employment Type: Full-time Base Salary: $220,000–$300,000 Equity: Competitive equity package Visa: Open to OPT and H-1B transfers; additional sponsorship may beconsidered Relocation: Up to $10,000 in relocation assistance About the Opportunity A rapidly growing AI and data company is building the datainfrastructure that powers next-generation AI models. The company works withproprietary enterprise data, transforming information generated throughreal-world business operations into de-identified datasets for leading AIresearch organizations. Having grown from $0 to a multi-eight-figure annualized runrate within months, the business is scaling rapidly with a lean engineeringteam of approximately five people. This is an opportunity to join at an early stage, takemeaningful ownership of mission-critical systems, and directly influence thearchitecture and reliability of a high-impact data-processing platform. The team is seeking a Backend Engineer to build andevolve the systems that transform sensitive enterprise information intohigh-quality, AI-training-ready datasets. The core focus is on the processing logic applied to thedata itself, rather than traditional data engineering, ETL, orinfrastructure work centered primarily on moving data between systems. What You'll Do Design,build, and scale multi-stage, high-volume data-processing pipelines thatde-identify sensitive enterprise data from collaboration tools, email,cloud storage, code repositories, and project-management systems. Ownbackend systems end-to-end, from architecture and implementation throughdebugging, correctness validation, production monitoring, and recovery. Developsafeguards to detect silent failures, duplicate outputs, stale data, andother data-quality issues before customer delivery. Buildreliable mechanisms for retries, checkpoints, partial failures, replay,backfills, and rollbacks across asynchronous workflows, batch workers,queues, and object storage. Developinternal tools and dashboards to monitor pipeline performance, investigatedata quality, and inform release decisions. Partnerwith ML, full-stack, platform, and security engineers to support new datamodalities and expand processing capabilities. Improvethe reliability, observability, and scalability of systems handlingcomplex and sensitive datasets. What We're Looking For Required Qualifications 3–10years of software engineering experience, with direct ownership ofproduction backend systems. Demonstratedexperience shipping and operating production software, ideally involvingmulti-stage, high-volume data-processing pipelines. Relevantundergraduate STEM degree from a top-30 U.S. institution. Strongunderstanding of distributed and asynchronous backend systems, including: Queues,workers, and concurrency Idempotencyand retry strategies Partialfailures and fault tolerance Recovery,replay, and data consistency Meaningfulfull-time experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup, withdemonstrated ownership, adaptability, and comfort operating in ambiguousenvironments. Strongproficiency in a general-purpose backend programming language. Abilityand willingness to work onsite five days per week in Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY. Important: The undergraduate education requirementand five-day onsite requirement are firm. Candidates who do not meet bothcriteria will not be considered. Technical Environment The current technology stack includes: Python, AWS, Airflow, AWS Batch, SQS, S3, DynamoDB, andPostgreSQL Python experience is not mandatory. Strong backend engineerswith experience in Go, Rust, Java, or other general-purpose languagesare encouraged to apply. AWSand cloud-based backend systems Batchprocessing and workflow orchestration NaturalLanguage Processing (NLP) and Named Entity Recognition (NER) Distributedsystems and asynchronous processing Dataquality, correctness, and production reliability Internaltooling, monitoring, and observability The team values engineers who think beyond implementation.Ideal candidates enjoy understanding how data-processing systems behave,building tools to investigate performance and quality, diagnosing complexfailures, and solving problems across the entire workflow. A backend-focused engineer with some full-stack experiencecan also be a strong fit. Experience That Stands Out Candidates may be particularly well suited to this role ifthey bring: Experienceat a highly regarded engineering organization combined with meaningfulstartup experience. Aclear record of career progression and increasing technical ownership. Hands-onAWS experience. Experiencebuilding or operating batch-processing pipelines and workfloworchestration systems. Experiencedeveloping internal tools, dashboards, or observability systems fordata-processing workflows. Astrong understanding of production failure modes, data correctness,recovery strategies, and system reliability. Theability to take a broad, ambiguous problem and deliver a reliableend-to-end solution. Who May Not Be a Fit This position is less suited to candidates whose experienceis primarily focused on: Traditionaldata engineering, data platforms, or infrastructure work centered onmoving data between systems. ETLdevelopment using tools such as Databricks, without substantial ownershipof the underlying processing logic. Frontend-heavyfull-stack development without significant backend engineering depth. Large-companyengineering environments without meaningful early-stage or high-growthstartup experience, unless the candidate's technical background isdirectly relevant. Startupexposure limited mainly to internships or short-term engagements. Team & Culture You'll join a small, high-performing engineering teamoperating in a fast-moving environment with significant customer demand andsubstantial room to influence the product and technical direction. The team emphasizes: First-principlesproblem-solving: Understand the underlying challenge and build theright solution. Ownershipand accountability: Take responsibility for systems and outcomes fromstart to finish. Biastoward action: Move quickly, experiment, and learn through execution. Engineeringexcellence: Deliver reliable, high-quality work that meets a hightechnical bar. Humilityand collaboration: Support teammates, share knowledge, and worktogether toward common goals. Outcome-drivenexecution: Prioritize meaningful results over activity or outputalone. With a very small engineering team, this role offerssignificant responsibility, close collaboration, and the opportunity to helpshape critical systems as the business scales. Compensation & Benefits BaseSalary: $220,000–$300,000 Equity:Competitive equity package Medical,Dental & Vision: 100% covered PaidTime Off: Unlimited PTO RelocationAssistance: Up to $10,000 Visa & Relocation Support The company is open to visa transfers, including OPT andH-1B transfers. Additional visa sponsorship may be considered forexceptional candidates, depending on individual circumstances. Sponsorship isnot guaranteed and will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Candidates relocating to New York may be eligible for up to$10,000 in relocation assistance. Interview Process The following stages begin after a candidate has beensubmitted to the hiring team. Agency screening and the initial resume revieware not counted as interview stages. Stage 1 — Introductory Call (30 minutes) A conversation with the hiring manager covering yourbackground, motivations, experience, and alignment with the role. Stage 2 — System Design (1 hour) A distributed-systems and data-processing exercise focusedon architecture, technical tradeoffs, scalability, and correctness inhigh-volume backend pipelines. Stage 3 — Take-Home Technical Assessment (A few hours) An independent, practical backend coding exercise evaluatingengineering fundamentals and hands-on problem-solving. The engineering teamwill review the completed submission. Stage 4 — Final Onsite Interviews (2 hours) An onsite session at the Dumbo, Brooklyn office withengineering and leadership. The final round evaluates technical depth,problem-solving, and team fit while giving candidates an opportunity to meetthe team and learn more about the business. Travel Support: Candidates who are not currentlybased in New York will be flown in and provided with accommodation for thefinal onsite interview. #J-18808-Ljbffr Dreams 2 Reality Recruitment