{"id":4298265,"url":"https://alion.io/job/books-are-fun-backend-engineer","title":"Backend Engineer","company":{"id":2565325,"name":"Books Are Fun","domain":"booksarefun.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/booksarefun","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Rippling","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":false},{"name":"Metabase","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"Snowflake","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-13T20:43:07Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-13","last_verified_at":"2026-11-14T02:24:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About Us\nCollective Goods Holdings, Inc. (CGH) is a privately held holding company behind Books Are Fun, Inc. - a company with a simple but powerful mission: to inspire lifelong readers by getting kids excited about books. Books Are Fun energizes communities, schools, and families to ensure every child has books at home, because we believe reading can change the world.\nTo learn more about our companies and how we spark a lifelong love of reading, please visit our website at https://booksarefun.com/book-blast\nPosition Summary\nFirst and foremost, you are a pragmatic builder of products. You care about solving problems for a large variety of internal users through technology. You find joy in working closely with stakeholders throughout the company to help them achieve their goals. You prefer simplicity and maintainability to complexity in your approach to building software and you prefer done to perfect. We’re working every day to build and refine digital products that delight users and streamline business processes. Our products will help the company to scale effectively with its rapidly growing product lines that will ultimately allow us to put more books into kid’s hands. We see an opportunity to further leverage our tech stack by enabling broader use through AI toolsets. You will be responsible for scoping and delivering key elements of this approach.\nKey Responsibilitie s\nBackend Development for AI Enablement\nImplement internal tools and services to allow users to gain more productivity through ai-tooling.\nArchitect backend solutions, potentially including data services, MCP servers, and one-off applications to support end-user AI interactions.\nKnow where to draw the line between enablement projects and formal software solutions\nInternal solutioning and training\nWork directly with internal stakeholders to understand their problems and processes in order to identify opportunities for acceleration through AI tooling\nTrain and guide internal teams on how to effectively adopt and use newly created and available AI tools and workflows\nEvaluate internal feedback to iteratively refine tools, moving beyond simple no-code/vibe-coded solutions to deliver production grade software where appropriate\nSecurity and Quality\nKeep an eye to security, particularly data security as you help the organization to leverage AI\nConduct application and code reviews, identify potential issues or improvements, and collaborate with stakeholders to address them in a timely manner.\nInnovation\nHelp the organization form a point of view on where AI fits and socialize strategies for effective AI use\nEvaluate and recommend emerging technologies and processes where appropriate in the AI space\nHelp stakeholders understand the relevance and application of various advancements in AI to our specific organization\nWhat Success Looks Like\nMetrics the business already tracks improve because of something you built or, better yet, helped to enable.\nError rates, rework, and policy violations on AI-touched work stay flat or go down. You don’t trade quality for speed.\nNamed workflows get faster or need fewer people. You can show the before-and-after numbers.\nPeople keep using what you ship, and customers on the receiving end would say it’s better. If they wouldn’t, it wasn’t a win.\nQualifications\n3+ year’s experience in implementing backend solutions\nBachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field or equivalent experience\nProven experience as Backend Engineer\nExperience working with LLMs to solve a broad array of problems\nSolid understanding of relational databases, SQL, and ORM concepts\nFamiliarity with frontend technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript\nExcellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail\nStrong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team environment\nPreferred\nExperience with Snowflake\nExperience with deploying applications to AWS with Terraform\nFamiliarity with data visualization tools, such as Metabase\nExperience implementing MCP\nBenefits:\n401(k)\nDental insurance\nVision insurance\nHealth insurance\nFlexible Spending Account/Health Savings Account\nSupplemental benefits (critical illness, accident, & hospital indemnity)\nEmployee assistance program\nInternet stipend\nCompany paid life insurance + buy-up option\nCompany paid short-term & long-term disability insurance \n13 paid holidays throughout the year\nPaid Time Off\nPaid Volunteer Time Off\nWork from home\nCultural connections such as our Quarterly Book Club\nPay\nThis is a full-time salaried role with a compensation starting at $135,000.\nWork Location\nThis is a work from home position.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4688,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Dental insurance","Health insurance","Life insurance","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United 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