Backend-Leaning Product Engineer
Summary
Build and own backend systems, APIs, and AI-driven automation pipelines for a small AI/automation startup, integrating with external tools and shipping end-to-end features with minimal oversight.
About the Role
Join a small, high-ownership product team at an early-stage AI and automation startup as a Backend-Leaning Product Engineer. This is a hands-on, end-to-end ownership role where you'll build real-world AI-driven products, navigate messy integrations, and make fast product and engineering trade-offs with strong judgment — without heavy PM support. You'll work closely with founders and customers in a hybrid in-office environment in San Francisco.
This is a great fit if you thrive in ambiguous, fast-moving startup environments and have a track record of shipping, not just planning.
What You'll Do
Own features end-to-end — from design through shipping and iteration.
Make independent product and engineering decisions with minimal oversight.
Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines.
Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and third-party services.
Design workflows and orchestration layers for AI/automation-driven products.
Debug production issues and exercise strong engineering judgment under pressure.
Contribute full-stack when needed, with a clear emphasis on backend ownership.
Collaborate directly with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders.
What We're Looking For
Required:
Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and maintaining data models and automation pipelines for backend systems.
Proven ability to debug production issues and apply strong engineering judgment in troubleshooting.
Track record of shipping real customer-facing products, ideally in 0-to-1 or ambiguous/messy startup environments.
Experience with backend systems, APIs, data modeling, integrations, and automation.
Comfort working in a very small, fast-moving team with little structure.
Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; hybrid/in-office presence required.
Nice to Have:
Applied AI or workflow/orchestration experience — agentic workflows, RAG, or LLM-enabled features.
Python experience; modern web/backend stacks are acceptable — engineering quality matters more than specific stack.
Background as an early/founding engineer, startup generalist, or product engineer from a scaling startup.
Close prior collaboration with founders or customers on customer-facing features.
Not a fit if: you are frontend-only, data/internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research/ML without shipping experience, or primarily motivated by corporate titles.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary: up to $275,000 USD annually
Equity: meaningful equity stake
Visa sponsorship: not available
Location
This role is on-site / hybrid in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be based in San Francisco or willing to relocate. Remote work is not available for this position.