Job Title

Who You Are You're a seasoned Backend Engineer with 5+ years of experience who thrives on building products from zero to one. You're a technical leader who can own an entire product's backend architecture, make architectural decisions, and mentor junior engineers. While backend-focused, you understand frontend concepts well enough to review code and ensure smooth integration. You understand that in an early-stage startup, you need to balance technical excellence with pragmatic choices that get products to market quickly. You're excited about taking full ownership of backend systems while building and guiding a small engineering team. Responsibilities - Take complete ownership of backend architecture for one core product vertical - from design to delivery to ongoing optimization - Lead and mentor 2-3 junior engineers while maintaining hands-on involvement in critical features - Design and build robust APIs using Python (FastAPI/Django/Flask) that power our web and mobile applications - Build and optimize cloud infrastructure on AWS and Azure, implementing containerization with Docker and orchestration with Kubernetes - Set up monitoring and observability using Grafana and related tools, ensuring system health at scale - Integrate with third-party AI services including LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and voice technologies (STT/TTS) - Establish engineering best practices including CI/CD pipelines, code reviews, and testing strategies - Partner directly with founders and product teams to translate business requirements into scalable backend solutions Qualifications Required - 5+ years building and shipping production backend systems, with proven ability to scale products from 0→1 and 1→10 - Strong expertise in Python backend frameworks (FastAPI/Django/Flask) - Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) in production environments - Hands-on experience with AWS and Azure cloud platforms, including deployment and security best practices - Proficiency with PostgreSQL and MongoDB for complex data modelling - Experience with monitoring tools (Grafana) and building observable systems - Strong background in API design, microservices architecture, and distributed systems - Proven track record of leading and mentoring junior engineers in a hands-on capacity - Ability to make pragmatic technical decisions, balancing quality with speed of execution Nice to Have - Frontend knowledge of React and TypeScript for code review and cross-stack collaboration - Experience integrating with AI/ML APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Cloud AI, etc.) - Experience with message queues (RabbitMQ/Kafka) and caching systems (Redis) - Knowledge of voice technologies (Speech-to-Text/Text-to-Speech) and real-time audio processing