Backend Engineer - San Jose, CA

Title: Backend Engineer (Founding / First Backend Hire)

Location: San Jose, CA (In Person)

Salary: $230,000 – $275,000

Job Type: Full-Time | Exempt

Benefits: Eligible for medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and PTO

Sponsorship: Not available

GenAI-powered consumer technology company is hiring its first Backend Engineer to help turn cutting-edge machine learning and visual media research into production-grade systems. This is a foundational engineering role working directly with research scientists, frontend engineers, and leadership to build the backend platform that will power a new generation of AI-driven photography and photo-editing experiences.

This role blends rapid prototyping with long-term platform ownership and is ideal for an engineer who enjoys building from scratch, shipping quickly, and setting technical standards that will scale with the company.

The Opportunity

As the first dedicated backend engineer, you’ll own the core backend architecture for a consumer-facing AI product. You’ll collaborate closely with ML engineers to productionize models, design APIs that scale, and build the infrastructure needed for reliability, security, and growth.

You won’t be handed a rigid roadmap—this role requires comfort with ambiguity, strong technical judgment, and a builder’s mindset. Your work will directly shape how the product is built, scaled, and experienced by users.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and maintain robust APIs that power consumer-facing applications
• Partner with ML engineers to productionize models and pipelines into reliable, fault-tolerant services
• Own backend infrastructure including deployments, monitoring, CI/CD, and security
• Work closely with frontend engineers to iterate quickly without sacrificing quality
• Own projects end-to-end—from early exploration and prototyping through deployment and scaling
• Establish backend best practices and documentation that will support future engineering hires

What We’re Looking For

• Experience building backend systems from 0 → 1 , either as an early startup engineer or technical lead
• Strong background in API design and integration with client-facing applications
• Comfort with databases, caching layers, and schema design for both real-time and analytical workloads
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization, and infrastructure-as-code
• Familiarity with serving AI/ML models in production , especially for media-rich or visual systems
• Enjoys fast iteration but maintains a high bar for reliability, testing, and maintainability
• Strong ownership mindset and excitement about wearing multiple hats on a small team

Ideal background:

Engineers who’ve worked at the intersection of visual media, cloud infrastructure, and machine learning —for example on photo platforms, creative tools, or ML-driven consumer products.

Team & Culture

• Small, highly technical team (currently ~6; growing to ~15 over the next year)
• In-person collaboration is a core value; this role is onsite in the San Jose, CA.
• Product-focused environment with healthy balance between research and delivery
• Best fit for people who are curious, decisive, and comfortable moving fast
• Poor fit for engineers who prefer heavy process, narrow scope, or lots of direction

Interview Process

1. Intro call with the CTO
2. Collaborative technical interview (coding or system design)
3. Short take-home exercise (4–6 hours max)
4. Culture & collaboration interview with the CEO

Why This Role

• First backend hire with real ownership and influence
• Direct exposure to ML, GenAI, and visual media systems in production
• Competitive compensation and strong benefits
• Opportunity to help define the technical foundation of a new AI-native product
• Work alongside researchers and engineers solving genuinely hard problems