Senior AI and Backend Engineer

We are looking for a hands-on technical leader who can build production grade AI systems, design scalable backend architecture, and lead a team of 3-4 engineers. You will balance technical execution with people management, taking ownership of complex projects while helping the team deliver high-quality software faster using AI-native development practices.

What You'll Do:

• Lead the team: Manage day-to-day execution, prioritise work, conduct 1:1s, provide feedback, mentor engineers, and support hiring and performance reviews.
• Build backend systems: Design and develop scalable APIs, asynchronous services, integrations, and distributed systems using Python, FastAPI, and related technologies.
• Build AI-powered products: Develop LLM applications, AI agents, RAG pipelines, and agentic workflows.
• Own architecture and reliability: Drive technical decisions across databases, performance, security, testing, and observability.
• Stay hands-on: Contribute directly to critical features, solve complex engineering problems, and support production systems.
• Champion AI-native engineering: Use tools like Cursor and Claude effectively, establishing practices that improve team productivity without compromising code quality.
• Collaborate across teams: Work with product, data, and platform teams to take initiatives from requirements to production.

What We're Looking For:

• 4+ years of software engineering experience, with demonstrated ownership of production systems.
• Strong Python fundamentals and experience designing backend services at scale.
• Practical experience building AI/LLM-powered applications, beyond basic API integrations or prototypes.
• Experience with system design, SQL, distributed systems, and production debugging.
• Ability to make sound technical trade-offs and balance delivery speed with reliability and maintainability.
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical projects, with strong communication and prioritisation skills.
• A hands-on mindset toward AI-assisted development, testing, and code quality.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with FastAPI, LangGraph, LangChain, or similar frameworks.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL, Redis, Snowflake, ClickHouse, or vector databases.
• Experience with AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, or messaging systems.
• Background in data engineering, analytics platforms, or multi-agent systems.

What Success Looks Like:

• A team of 3-4 engineers delivering reliably with clear ownership and strong engineering standards.
• Scalable backend systems and AI features running reliably in production.
• Improved engineering velocity through effective AI tooling and workflows.
• Engineers who grow in capability while you continue contributing to critical technical work.

Skills

APIs, Backend, FastAPI, LLM, LangChain, LangGraph, Python, RAG