Back-end engineer
We’re looking for someone to build the core infrastructure that powers everything behind the scenes.
That means APIs, orchestration logic, model integration, data pipelines, and all the glue that connects users to intelligence. You’ll work directly with the founders to turn early-stage AI ideas into robust, production-grade systems. This isn’t about tuning someone else’s stack. It’s about designing and building it from the ground up.
This is the only backend hire for now—and a critical one. You’ll bring reliability, structure, and velocity, so the rest of the team can build fast on a solid foundation.
What you’ll do
This role is about making the system work—cleanly, efficiently, and at scale.
Build and maintain the core backend APIs that drive user-facing features and AI interactions
Design the orchestration logic that connects LLMs, vector databases, tools, and third-party systems
Set up infrastructure for prompt routing, context injection, retrieval pipelines, and agent flows
Handle authentication, permissions, logging, and monitoring—everything that keeps the system safe and visible
Work closely with the full-stack and ML team to turn prototypes into production
Make smart tradeoffs between speed and scalability, scope and reliability
Set up systems that are simple, testable, and ready to evolve
Own the backend architecture—language choices, service structure, deployment pipelines, data flows
Who you are
You’ve built real systems, from scratch. You care about clarity, performance, and getting it right without overbuilding.
You’re fluent in Python and Go, and know how to design systems that scale
You’ve worked with LLMs, APIs, RAG pipelines, and agentic architectures—or you’re hungry to go deep fast
You’re comfortable working with messy data, legacy systems, or zero infrastructure—whatever the starting point
You know how to model, move, and transform data—even when there’s no warehouse (yet)
You’re pragmatic: you ship early, refactor when needed, and don’t fall in love with your first design
You’ve worked on backend systems where correctness, speed, and observability mattered
You’re not looking to specialize in one narrow service—you want to own the full system
You’ve got 8+ years of experience designing and scaling backend systems—APIs, data pipelines, infrastructure—and you’ve built platforms others could depend on.
You’ll be the person who makes the AI work in the real world. And you’ll shape what this becomes—just as much as any model or interface.
How to apply
Show us what you’re proud of — projects, code, writing, anything that reflects how you think and build. Format’s up to you. Send it all to jobs@iconics.works
