The Senior Backend Engineer will design and implement infrastructure for an AI system, solve complex data-related problems, and ensure system scalability and security.
Role Overview
The Role
Required Skills
Benefits
We're seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join our fast-paced team to design, develop, and implement new infrastructure for Littlebird, our personalized AI teammate for Mac and Android (Windows soon!). We’re building personal AI; a thought partner that connects dots in your work and helps you think. Check out the recent TechCrunch news on our $11M seed funding and what users are saying about the product.
We're an async-first team that values craft and ownership. Our engineers live at the intersection of genuine research curiosity and production discipline: you'll push the frontier in areas like realtime data, search, and inference, then wrestle those ideas into systems that are fast, lean, and built to scale.
You will architect the system that allows our agent to reason, remember, and evolve. You'll develop core infrastructure that turns messy, unstructured user data into a coherent world model.
Some of the hard problems you'll solve:
- Build AI Memory: Our current memory systems will continue to scale. You'll lead the charge to design and implement our next-generation memory system This means solving hard problems in:
- Scale Our Data & Retrieval Pipelines: As we grow, you'll be responsible for ensuring our data ingestion, hybrid search, and re-ranking pipelines are fast, reliable, and cost-effective.
- Security: Ensure our infrastructure is highly secure and observable, with a focus on speed and cost
- Graph-based Retrieval: How do you query a graph efficiently to provide the agent with rich, structured context, moving beyond simple semantic search?
- Deep experience building and scaling data-intensive backend systems in Python or Go.
- Strong system-design skills and experience working with distributed systems.
- A clear mental model for data structures and their trade-offs. You like to think deeply about how to represent complex information.
- Hands-on experience with RAG pipelines, even if you're a little frustrated with their limitations.
- Production experience with modern cloud infrastructure, observability tooling, and PostgreSQL
- A pragmatic approach. You know when to build for the long term and when to ship a clever solution that works now.
- Remote-friendly work environment
- Collaborative team culture
- Opportunity to shape infrastructure decisions
- Competitive compensation packages including stock and health benefits, paid time off, and parental leave. 401k options for all US-based employees.
- Flexible working hours across multiple time zones
- We love to hear when birds chirp!
Similar Jobs
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • HR Tech • Information Technology • Productivity • Software • Automation
Build and maintain scalable native Android and backend software using Java or Kotlin. Responsibilities include designing features, writing clean and reusable code, performing code reviews, developing automated tests, collaborating with product owners, enhancing products, managing technical risk, and mentoring colleagues. The role also involves applying AI productivity tools, modern web frameworks, software architecture, and performance considerations.
Top Skills:
Android FrameworkAngularClaude CodeCodexCoroutinesDaggerDevinGlideJavaJavaScriptKotlinReactRxjavaVue
Big Data • Fintech • Mobile • Payments • Financial Services
Build and lead development of high-availability backend services for Affirm’s card loan platform. Design scalable APIs, data models, microservices, and event-driven systems supporting real-time loan attribution, approvals, origination, and refunds. Drive technical strategy, troubleshoot complex performance issues, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and mentor engineers while ensuring long-term system robustness and scalability.
Top Skills:
AWSAzureDockerEvent-Driven ArchitectureGCPKotlinKubernetesMicroservicesNoSQLPythonRestful ApisSQL
Big Data • Fintech • Mobile • Payments • Financial Services
Architect, build, and operate large-scale relational and distributed SQL database infrastructure. Responsibilities include database control-plane automation, provisioning, failover, backups, upgrades, zero-downtime migrations, Kubernetes networking, connection proxy optimization, reliability monitoring, capacity planning, and operational support. The role also leads technical delivery, mentors engineers, establishes quality standards, collaborates cross-functionally, and contributes to team roadmap and on-call operations.
Top Skills:
AWSCockroachdbDynamoDBKotlinKubernetesMySQLPgbouncerPgdogPostgresProxysqlPythonRds ProxyRedisSpannerSQLTerraformTidbTlsVitess
What you need to know about the Colorado Tech Scene
With a business-friendly climate and research universities like CU Boulder and Colorado State, Colorado has made a name for itself as a startup ecosystem. The state boasts a skilled workforce and high quality of life thanks to its affordable housing, vibrant cultural scene and unparalleled opportunities for outdoor recreation. Colorado is also home to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, helping cement its status as a hub for renewable energy innovation.
Key Facts About Colorado Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 260,000; 8.5% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Lockheed Martin, Century Link, Comcast, BAE Systems, Level 3
- Key Industries: Software, artificial intelligence, aerospace, e-commerce, fintech, healthtech
- Funding Landscape: $4.9 billion in VC funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Access Venture Partners, Ridgeline Ventures, Techstars, Blackhorn Ventures
- Research Centers and Universities: Colorado School of Mines, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Denver, Colorado State University, Mesa Laboratory, Space Science Institute, National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Gottlieb Institute
