Senior Backend Engineer
Summary
Senior backend engineer joining the founding engineering team of an early-stage AI startup (client of PEPOLTek): shipping features end to end and building reliable LLM agents over messy organizational data. Core stack: Python, SQL, API design, distributed systems, LLM/RAG and agentic frameworks.
PEPOLTek has a portfolio of SaaS products used across education, HR, and enterprise operations, including BIDYATek, a school management platform for institutions across Bangladesh, our Intelligent HR Solution, a cloud-based HRMS used by growing companies, and an Enterprise ERP suite for supply chain and financial operations.
Alongside our own products, we work with software development partners across the USA to extend our engineering capacity on their behalf. We are hiring a Senior Backend Engineer for one of these partners, an early-stage AI startup in San Francisco, to join their founding engineering team.
The Role
We are looking for a generalist, high-agency engineer with 5+ years of backend experience building customer-facing products. The ideal candidate has startup DNA, experience at top-tier startups (Series B or earlier) or as a founder, and a product mindset that ties technical decisions to business impact. This person questions the why, drives projects end to end without oversight, and thrives in early-stage ambiguity with high ownership and fast iteration.
What You'll Do
- Own and ship product features end to end, from problem scoping through backend implementation to production
- Design and ship LLM agents that reason over large, messy, real-world organizational data, and make them reliable enough to trust
- Make key technical decisions across the product and backend, including architecture, data modeling, APIs, and tooling, and set the engineering quality bar
- Operate with full autonomy, where your judgment directly shapes the product, the codebase, and the company
- Own high-risk, high-impact projects with minimal hand-holding
- Shape product direction alongside the founding team and work closely with them to support growing client engagements
What You'll Bring
- 5+ years of backend experience at top-tier startups (Series B or earlier) or as a founder, with production-deployed, customer-facing software at scale
- Deep Python expertise and strong backend architecture and systems design skills
- Proficiency in API design and SQL data stores
- Hands-on experience building with LLMs or agentic AI systems
- A generalist mindset, comfortable building across the product surface rather than specializing in pure infra or backend work
- A product mindset that ties technical work to business and customer impact
Nice to Have
- Direct experience working with customers
- Fluency with AI coding tools, using AI as a force multiplier without outsourcing judgment
Growth
This is a founding-level role. You will shape product direction alongside the founding team, set the engineering quality bar, and grow with the company as client engagements scale from hundreds to thousands of employees.
Compensation and Perks
- $190,000 to $300,000 base salary
- Meaningful founding-level equity
Work Authorization
Candidates must have current work authorization in the US or Canada without need for employer sponsorship.
Job Details
- Employment type: Full time
- Location: San Francisco, CA
- Workplace: Remote-friendly, with offices in San Francisco and Toronto. Remote engineers are expected to travel in periodically, for example a week or two at a time, for in-person collaboration.
- Tech stack: Python, SQL, distributed systems, API design, LLMs, RAG, agentic frameworks, platform engineering
- Vacancies: 1 to 2
How to Apply
Apply with your Resume & Cover Letter. We look forward to Knowing You.