Staff Backend Software Engineer, Rodeo

Who we are

At Twelve Labs, we are pioneering the development of cutting-edge multimodal foundation models that have the ability to comprehend videos just like humans do. Our models have redefined the standards in video-language modeling, empowering us with more intuitive and far-reaching capabilities, and fundamentally transforming the way we interact with and analyze various forms of media.

With a remarkable $107 million in Seed and Series A funding, our company is backed by top-tier venture capital firms such as NVIDIA’s NVentures, NEA, Radical Ventures, and Index Ventures, and prominent AI visionaries and founders such as Fei-Fei Li, Silvio Savarese, Alexandr Wang and more. Headquartered in San Francisco, with an influential APAC presence in Seoul, our global footprint underscores our commitment to driving worldwide innovation.

We are a global company that values the uniqueness of each person’s journey. It is the differences in our cultural, educational, and life experiences that allow us to constantly challenge the status quo. We are looking for individuals who are motivated by our mission and eager to make an impact as we push the bounds of technology to transform the world. Join us as we revolutionize video understanding and multimodal AI.

About the Role

As a Senior Backend Software Engineer at TwelveLabs, you’ll build the server-side infrastructure powering our new agentic application layer. You'll join a small, high-impact team and own the critical transition from prototype to production-ready platform.

Up to 25% travel to Los Angeles is expected.

Candidates must be able to travel up to 10% of the time annually to attend conferences, off-site meetings, and other business-related events as required by the role. This role may require participation in on-site interviews and/or completion of in-person onboarding processes.

In this role, you will

Backend

• Design and build backend services for video processing workflows — ingestion, transcoding, 4K export, metadata extraction, and timeline operations

• Architect scalable, high-availability systems to support enterprise-grade video workloads across cloud-native infrastructure (AWS, GCP)

• Build and optimize APIs that power real-time and async frontend workflows, including streaming data delivery and long-running job orchestration

• Own performance and reliability for distributed video processing pipelines with low latency and high throughput requirements

• Collaborate closely with frontend engineers on API design, data models, and streaming strategies

ML Integration

• Integrate and run inference on computer vision models for tasks like video resizing, scene detection, automatic audio noise cleaning, and visual analysis

• Deploy and serve ML models on cloud-based or cloud-native platforms — evaluate build-vs-buy for model serving and SaaS alternatives

• Work with the research team to productionize model outputs into reliable, scalable backend services

• Build pipelines that bridge TwelveLabs’ foundation models with third-party CV models to power intelligent video workflows

You may be a good fit if you have

• 10+ years building production backend systems with a track record of designing scalable web services and APIs

• Experience with video-specific tools and frameworks (FFmpeg, AWS Media Services, transcoding pipelines)

• Deep experience with service-oriented architecture, microservices, and distributed systems

• Strong proficiency in Python for backend services, model integration, and tooling

• Hands-on experience running inference on ML/CV models in production — not research, but engineering models into reliable services

• Cloud-native development experience (AWS or GCP), including containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and serverless patterns

• Comfort working across the stack and making pragmatic tradeoffs in a fast-moving product environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced API design skills (RESTful, streaming, async patterns)

• Familiarity with model serving platforms (TorchServe, Triton, SageMaker endpoints, or similar)

• Experience with MLOps practices — model deployment, monitoring, versioning

• Background in media, entertainment, or video streaming platforms

• Exposure to CI/CD pipelines and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana) for production systems

• Experience with AI-powered product features or agentic application architectures

Benefits and Perks

🤝 An open and inclusive culture and work environment.

🚀 Work closely with a collaborative, mission-driven team on cutting-edge AI technology.

🏥 Full health, dental, and vision benefits

✈️ Extremely flexible PTO and parental leave policy. Office closed the week of Christmas and New Years.

🛂 VISA support where applicable