Founding Backend Software Engineer

About the Role

Join an early-stage AI video company as a founding backend engineer. You will lead backend architecture and engineering practices while building systems that power generative video and agentic workflows.

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 testing, performance benchmarking, and end-to-end observability.
• Partner with researchers, engineers, and designers to develop product features and APIs.
• Set technical direction and engineering standards while contributing high-quality code.
• Document systems, define agent skills, and communicate technical decisions clearly.

What We're Looking For

• Five to ten years of backend software engineering experience, including work at early-stage or high-growth startups.
• Industry experience building agentic systems and working with LLMs or generative AI for at least one year.
• Strong experience with scalable backend and distributed systems, large-scale data processing, information retrieval, and asynchronous workflows.
• Professional experience with TypeScript and AWS; familiarity with services such as S3, Lambda, RDS, SQS, and ECS is relevant.
• Strong fundamentals in algorithms, data structures, and system design, applied to production backend systems.
• Experience acting as a technical lead and raising engineering standards through code and technical guidance.
• A formal degree and fluent English communication skills.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary

$225,000 to $275,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California.