Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. The client is a privately held technology company that develops configurable SaaS analytics and workflow solutions for data-driven organizations. The Lead Backend Engineer – AI Services will lead the development of scalable backend services and AI-focused platform initiatives, partnering with Data Science teams to productionize prototypes and build reliable AI capabilities for customer-facing applications.
Responsibilities
- Develop and enhance backend services within a SaaS platform, with a focus on scalability, reliability, and maintainability
- Lead complex AI-focused platform initiatives from problem definition through architecture, implementation, deployment, and operationalization
- Break down ambiguous technical and business challenges into actionable work and drive solutions through completion
- Partner closely with Data Science teams to transition proof-of-concept AI pipelines into scalable production services
- Design and implement reusable services, integrations, and supporting infrastructure for AI capabilities, including model serving, LLM integration, orchestration, and retrieval services
- Design systems that support rapid experimentation while maintaining the reliability, security, and operational standards required for production applications
- Partner with Data Science to prototype new AI capabilities and evaluate emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and deployment approaches
- Help shape backend architecture, engineering standards, reusable patterns, and foundational components for future platform development
- Evaluate technical tradeoffs involving experimentation speed, scalability, reliability, security, maintainability, and long-term platform needs
- Contribute to technical decisions involving build-versus-buy evaluations and emerging technologies
Skills
- 15+ years of experience designing and implementing production SaaS applications, including modernizing and extending existing production platforms
- Strong backend engineering experience with Java , including strong command of the language
- Demonstrated experience designing and implementing scalable architectures for AI-enabled applications, including model deployment, APIs, data flows, integrations, and production operations
- Demonstrated experience integrating machine learning and generative AI capabilities into commercial products or customer-facing applications
- Experience working across both research/prototype and production environments
- Working knowledge of Python, FastAPI, MLflow, LangChain or similar orchestration frameworks, vector databases, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), LLM APIs, model serving, feature stores, ML pipelines, prompt engineering, and agentic workflows
- Experience with SQL and data-centric platform technologies
- Experience implementing, enhancing, or maintaining business intelligence, analytics, or decision-support platforms
- Strong software engineering fundamentals, including testing, CI/CD, monitoring, security, and source control
- Experience deploying and supporting critical production systems in Linux environments
- Experience working with or integrating systems deployed on AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Strong technical judgment when evaluating architectural tradeoffs, emerging technologies, and build-versus-buy decisions
- Strong debugging and problem-solving abilities, with an emphasis on taking ownership of problems from beginning to end
- Experience partnering with Data Science teams to design and implement proof-of-concept infrastructure and pipelines supporting the experimentation lifecycle
- Ability to work independently within a small team while managing multiple complex initiatives in a fast-paced environment
- Comfortable working with and evolving an existing codebase rather than only building greenfield systems
- Excellent organizational, documentation, and communication skills, including the ability to clearly explain technical challenges, evaluate options, communicate tradeoffs, and make recommendations to stakeholders
- Must be a U.S. Citizen or Green Card holder
- Ability to collaborate effectively with a geographically distributed team
Benefits
- 100% Remote
Company Overview