Staff Backend Engineer | High-Growth AI Productivity Startup | $25M round led by OpenAI

We are partnered with a high-growth startup that’s redefining the future of productivity—taking on giants like Notion, Linear, and Airtable. Backed by over $25M in funding led by OpenAI ventures, this team is building the next generation of tools to augment human intelligence.

They’re looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to take the lead on backend architecture, infrastructure, and sync systems, helping bring AI-powered experiences to life. This is a unique opportunity to work directly with the CEO and founding team to shape the core product, infrastructure, and backend strategy in a fast-moving, highly creative environment.

Also open to exceptional mid and senior engineers (backend or full stack)

Remote but we work on PST hrs

What You’ll Do

• Collaborate with the CEO, Founding Engineer, and Lead UX Designer to architect backend systems that enable intelligent, context-aware user experiences.

• Lead the design and implementation of core infrastructure and local-first sync systems.

• Develop backend services for rich, collaborative features powered by large language models.

• Solve complex backend challenges—collaborative editing, real-time recommendation, data ingestion, and AI-driven indexing and discovery.

• Improve observability and monitoring to ensure reliability and scalability.

• Define and champion engineering best practices across the backend organization.

You Might Be a Great Fit If You:

• Are impact-driven, opinionated, and thrive in ambiguous environments.

• Have led architecture across complex projects and teams.

• Have scaled infrastructure in production environments.

• Bring a systems-thinking mindset and enjoy tackling deeply technical challenges.

• Have a strong sense of ownership and enjoy working from first principles.

• Prior founder or startup experience is a big plus.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Django, Python, OpenAPI

• Data: Postgres, Redis, Elasticsearch, Pinecone, Apache Beam, Cohere, OpenAI

• Infra: Google Cloud Platform, Cloud Run, PubSub, Temporal, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Docker

• Collaboration: TipTap (ProseMirror) with Yjs for rich text editing

• Monitoring: Datadog

Perks & Benefits

• High-impact, greenfield work on the frontier of AI and productivity

• Competitive salary and equity

• Fully remote (US-based), with no required office time

• 21 days of paid vacation

• Regular company-sponsored retreats, events, and team meals

• Comprehensive health coverage — medical, dental, vision, and mental health

• Monthly wellness and AI tool stipends

• Top-of-the-line equipment: M1 MacBook Pro, 4K display, and more

• Family-first policies: 16 weeks of paid family leave, plus support for IVF, egg freezing, adoption, and childcare