{"id":21908,"url":"https://alion.io/job/pear-vc-backend-engineer-known","title":"Backend Engineer - Known","company":{"id":6218,"name":"Pear VC","domain":"pear.vc","url":"https://alion.io/company/pear-vc","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":true,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":85,"open_postings":94,"ghost_share":0.17,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0.011,"time_to_fill_p50_days":173,"computed_at":"2026-10-19T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":140000,"max_usd":277000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1351},"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Anthropic","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Node JS","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Redis","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"Voice Agents","optional":false},{"name":"WebRTC","optional":false},{"name":"WebSockets","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-10-29T01:05:02Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-10-29","last_verified_at":"2026-10-19T14:02:39Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":355,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":355},"description":"About the Role\nYou’ll be a core technical founder building the backend systems and infrastructure that power Known - from the APIs that will serve millions of requests, to the real-time communication pipelines that enable voice and text conversations, to the data architecture that supports intelligent matching at scale. You’ll design systems that are reliable, performant, and ready to grow with our user base.\nYou’ll work closely with the founding team (AI/ML, fullstack, product, and design) to architect backend services that handle complex workflows - streaming LLM responses, batch matching jobs, payment processing, and real-time chat - while maintaining simplicity and developer velocity. This is a high-ownership role where you’ll make critical infrastructure decisions and set the technical foundation for Known’s growth.\nResponsibilities\nDesign and build scalable backend services in Node.js/TypeScript, including RESTful APIs, background job processing, and data pipelines that support both real-time and batch workloads.\n\nArchitect and optimize database systems using Postgres - including schema design, query optimization, indexing strategies, and data integrity at scale.\n\nImplement real-time communication infrastructure using WebSockets for chat and WebRTC for audio/video, ensuring low latency and high reliability.\n\nIntegrate and manage third-party services (OpenAI/Anthropic LLMs, Google/Apple Pay, reservation platforms, SMS/push notifications, CDNs) with robust error handling and monitoring.\n\nCollaborate with AI/ML engineers to build APIs and data pipelines that serve model predictions, handle training data collection, and support experimentation workflows.\n\nOwn infrastructure, deployment, and observability - build CI/CD pipelines, implement monitoring and alerting, optimize cloud costs, and ensure system reliability as traffic scales.\n\nDesign for performance and scale - implement caching strategies, optimize API response times, and architect systems that can handle 10x growth without rewrites.\n\nRequirements\n4-6 years building production backend systems, ideally in consumer products, high-traffic applications, or startups.\n\nStrong proficiency in TypeScript and Node.js with deep understanding of async patterns, performance optimization, and error handling.\n\nExpert-level knowledge of Postgres - you’re comfortable with complex queries, transactions, indexing, connection pooling, and performance tuning.\n\nExperience designing and scaling RESTful APIs with attention to rate limiting, authentication, caching, and versioning.\n\nHands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP) including compute, storage, databases, and networking services.\n\nFamiliarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code tools.\n\nExperience with WebSockets and WebRTC for real-time communication systems.\n\nStrong understanding of observability and monitoring - logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting best practices.\n\nYou think about security, data privacy, and compliance as first-class concerns.\n\nExample Projects\nBuild a high-throughput API layer that serves personalized match recommendations, user profiles, and compatibility scores with sub-100ms response times.\n\nDesign and implement a background job system for processing batch matching algorithms, sending notifications, and generating analytics reports.\n\nCreate WebSocket infrastructure for real-time messaging with presence indicators, typing notifications, and streaming LLM-powered conversation suggestions.\n\nArchitect WebRTC signaling and media server infrastructure to support voice/video chat between users and AI voice agents.\n\nBuild payment and reservation integration workflows with idempotency guarantees, webhook handling, and comprehensive error recovery.\n\nImplement a robust caching layer (Redis) that reduces database load and improves API response times across the platform.\n\nDesign database schemas and migration strategies that support rapid product iteration while maintaining data consistency and performance.\n\nExpand monitoring and observability infrastructure with distributed tracing, performance profiling, and automated alerting for system health.\n\nWhy This Role\nThis is a chance to be the infrastructure architect of a consumer AI product from day one - to build backend systems that are elegant, scalable, and enable rapid product innovation. You’ll have the autonomy to make foundational technical decisions and the responsibility to ensure Known can grow from thousands to millions of users without missing a beat.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4561,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":4,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Venture Capital"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2025-10-29T01:05:02Z"},{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T23:44:41Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-10-14T00:16:54Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":15,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.544,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":355,"expected_fill_days":173,"reasons":["conf:3","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-19T05:45:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/pear-vc-backend-engineer-known","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/pear-vc-backend-engineer-known.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-19T17:46:09Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":13546,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-20T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":6218},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=6218"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fpear-vc-backend-engineer-known"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fpear-vc-backend-engineer-known"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fpear-vc-backend-engineer-known"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/pear-vc-backend-engineer-known\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fpear-vc-backend-engineer-known"}]}