Founding Backend Engineer

Written By Jarien Geels

We’re looking for someone who can turn complex infrastructure into fast, reliable, and scalable backend systems that power AI-driven product features.

This includes distributed services, cloud architecture, CI/CD automation, security, networking, and everything else required to make modern systems work smoothly. You’ll work directly with the founders to design how the backend supports the product, from quick prototypes to dependable production workflows. This role is not about research. It is about building high-performance infrastructure that is practical, stable, and ready for real users.

This is our primary backend-focused hire for now, and a defining one. You will influence how our services are built, how they scale, and how they integrate with the core product experience.

What you’ll do

This role is about making the platform usable by designing the systems layer that connects models, tools, data, and user-facing features.

  • Take ownership of backend architecture, including distributed systems, concurrency, and low-latency service patterns

  • Build and deploy cloud-agnostic systems on Azure, including compute, networking, identity, and secure service integrations

  • Develop high-performance data pipelines that behave reliably under load

  • Design how services interact through APIs, queues, orchestration logic, retries, and flow control

  • Create automated CI/CD pipelines that make deployments fast, safe, and repeatable

  • Build strong observability, including metrics, logging, and tracing, to understand system performance and failure modes

  • Work with product, engineering, and AI teams to prototype quickly and convert insights into stable production components

  • Debug complex distributed behavior and refine systems as you learn from real-world usage

  • Contribute to long-term infrastructure strategy across scalability, security, architecture, and developer workflows

  • Architect and implement the cloud network security and secure development workflows.

Who you are

You have experience building and operating real distributed systems. You think in terms of architectures and interactions rather than isolated endpoints. You enjoy turning complexity into dependable, high-performance systems.

  • You write clean, maintainable backend code in Python, and this is one of your strongest skills, and you know when (not) to use AI coding agents.

  • You have operated at a staff engineer level, providing technical leadership in designing and evolving complex distributed systems, and confidently guiding architectural decisions.

  • You have strong experience with Azure, including compute, networking, identity, VNETs, secrets, and monitoring

  • You have integrated backend systems with Microsoft Entra ID, SharePoint, and the Office 365 suite

  • You have deep knowledge and practical experience in secure software development

  • You have production experience with Azure OpenAI or similar AI model-serving environments

  • You understand concurrency, distributed systems principles, and how to build for reliability and scale

  • You have built automated deployment pipelines and worked with infrastructure-as-code

  • You have built systems that deliver high throughput and low latency, and you know how to test and validate that behavior

  • You are familiar with the AI and ML software stack, vector databases, and model integration patterns

  • You think about performance, observability, and failure handling as first-class concerns

  • You are product-minded and consider how backend design shapes the overall experience

  • You see backend architecture as a core part of the product, not just a supporting layer

You have at least 10 years of experience working with backend systems, cloud infrastructure, or high-performance platforms. You have shipped production systems that real users rely on.

You will be the person who makes the platform trustworthy and secure. And you will help shape what this becomes, influencing every part of the system as much as any model or interface we deliver.

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@iconic.works

Jarien Geels