Backend Software Engineer; Hybrid

Role: Backend Software Engineer

Location: Palo Alto, CA (Hybrid – 1 day/week onsite)

Company Stage: Series A Venture-Backed Startup

Office Type: Hybrid

Salary: $180,000 – $260,000 base + equity

Our client is a fast‑growing, mission‑driven startup focused on transforming workforce education through AI‑powered personalization and accessibility. The company partners with major education providers and enterprises to make learning scalable, adaptive, and inclusive for millions of adult learners worldwide. With over $1M in annual recurring revenue and strong year‑over‑year growth, they’re backed by top‑tier investors in the education and technology space.

• Architect and implement scalable backend systems that power AI and recommendation engines.
• Build and maintain data pipelines, APIs, and services used by educators and enterprise partners.
• Optimize infrastructure to support low‑latency AI interactions and data‑intensive workloads.
• Collaborate closely with full‑stack, ML, and product teams to create personalized learning experiences at scale.
• Contribute to engineering best practices, architecture decisions, and technical culture as an early hire.

• 3+ years of professional backend engineering experience, ideally in Python and FastAPI.
• Strong experience with relational databases (Postgre
  
  SQL preferred).
• Proven track record of owning complex projects end‑to‑end — from architecture through deployment.
• Background in building and scaling products used by large user bases.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to thrive in a fast‑moving startup environment.

• Exposure to or curiosity about AI/LLM integration (e.g., GPT, LLAMA, BERT) and retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG).
• Experience in cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and Dev Ops practices.
• Previous experience in high‑growth startups or large‑scale tech environments.
• Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and open to working onsite in Palo Alto 1 day per week.

• Competitive base salary: $180K – $260K, commensurate with experience.
• Equity participation in a fast‑growing venture‑backed company.
• Comprehensive health benefits and generous time‑off policy.
• Opportunity to join a small, world‑class team of engineers and researchers from top institutions (Stanford, MIT, Microsoft Research).
• Direct impact and ownership in building AI‑first infrastructure from the ground up.

Join a team that’s redefining how people learn and grow through technology — while working alongside passionate innovators who are changing the landscape of workforce education.