Senior Backend Engineer

This is a founding backend engineering role on a small, technical team building AI agents to automate customs clearance workflows in a $10T global trade industry that still relies on manual, document-heavy processes. You'll design and scale distributed systems - queues, pipelines, databases, search - that power the core logistics platform, and set technical direction for the backend as the team grows.

Experience: 5+ years of professional backend engineering experience

• Meaningful time in a high-growth startup or high-scale production environment

• Demonstrated ability to own and ship backend systems end-to-end with minimal supervision

• Track record of making sound architectural trade-offs under time pressure

• Strong command of distributed systems, database design, indexing, and query optimization

• Real startup experience (10+ person company); self-starter mentality required

• Based in San Francisco or committed to relocating (in-person, non-negotiable) Preferred:

• Experience with message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS) and event-driven architectures

• Familiarity with AI/ML pipeline infrastructure or document processing at scale

• Experience with search infrastructure (Elasticsearch, pgvector)

• Background at a Series A/B startup or as a founding engineer

• Logistics, customs, or regulated industry software experience Visa Sponsorship: H-1B transfer OK · OPT OK · No new H-1B sponsorship LOGISTICS Location: San Francisco, CA

Base: $180,000--$260,000 Equity: 0.2--0.5% Benefits: Health insurance fully covered; dental & vision 75% covered; 401(k) WHY THIS ROLE, + $185,000-250,000 per year Join a high-growth profitable AI startup transforming a deeply broken system with agentic driven software, building products that directly impact the lives and careers of top globa…

• 18 days ago