Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer – AI/ML

Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE

Working Arrangement: On-site

Contract: 6 months

The Role

We are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join a major AI transformation programme in Abu Dhabi.

You will be responsible for designing and building production-grade backend services, microservices and APIs supporting AI/ML applications, LLM-powered solutions and intelligent agent systems.

This is a hands-on engineering role working across backend architecture, AI integration, enterprise systems and secure infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable backend services and microservices for AI-powered applications.

• Build APIs and orchestration services supporting LLMs, AI agents and automated workflows.

• Develop secure integrations with enterprise platforms, data platforms and external APIs.

• Build backend services supporting RAG, semantic search and vector database use cases.

• Develop high-performance applications using Python, Go or Java.

• Design and implement RESTful APIs and/or gRPC services.

• Build and deploy containerised applications using Docker and Kubernetes.

• Implement authentication, authorisation, RBAC, logging, monitoring and auditability.

• Optimise systems for secure on-premise and restricted environments.

• Work closely with AI/ML Engineers, Data Scientists and Frontend Engineers to take solutions from development into production.

Essential Experience

• 5+ years' experience in Backend Engineering.

• Strong production experience with Python, ideally FastAPI or Django.

• Strong experience with Go or Java.

• Proven experience building distributed systems and microservices.

• Strong hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes.

• Experience designing and developing REST APIs and/or gRPC.

• Strong experience with PostgreSQL or relational databases.

• Experience building production systems supporting AI/ML, LLM or data-intensive applications.

• Strong understanding of software architecture, scalability, security and reliability.

Desirable Experience

• LLM applications, AI agents or agent orchestration.

• RAG and vector databases such as Weaviate or Milvus.

• API gateways such as Kong or NGINX.

• Enterprise integrations including SAP, OData or SOAP.

• On-premise, air-gapped or restricted environments.

• Experience in defence, government, fintech, healthcare or other regulated environments.

• Observability, monitoring and distributed tracing.

The Opportunity

This is an opportunity to work on a high-profile AI transformation programme in Abu Dhabi, building secure and scalable backend architecture at the intersection of AI, enterprise technology and distributed systems.

If you're a Senior Backend Engineer who wants to work on technically challenging AI applications and production-scale platforms, we'd like to hear from you.

Please note: The end client is confidential. Further details will be shared with shortlisted candidates.