Founding Backend Software Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE

Join an early-stage AI video team as a founding backend engineer, helping build the systems behind generative video products. You will provide technical leadership on a small team and establish strong engineering practices as the product and infrastructure 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 benchmarks, and end-to-end observability.
• Partner with research, engineering, and design teammates to develop product features and APIs.
• Write production code, set technical direction and engineering guidelines, and raise the team's engineering standards.
• Document systems and technical decisions clearly in a fast-moving, on-site environment.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• Five to ten years of backend software engineering experience, including experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup.
• Professional experience building scalable backend and distributed systems, including large-scale data processing, information retrieval, or asynchronous workflows.
• At least one year of industry experience designing and building agentic systems, LLMs, or generative AI products.
• Industry experience with TypeScript and AWS; familiarity with S3, Lambda, RDS, SQS, ECS, FastAPI, Docker, and CI/CD is relevant.
• Strong fundamentals in algorithms, data structures, and system design, applied in professional backend work.
• Experience serving as a technical lead, setting direction and code standards while remaining hands-on.
• A formal degree, fluent English, and work authorization that does not require visa sponsorship.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

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

LOCATION

On-site in San Francisco, California.