Senior Software Engineer, Infrastructure/Platform

David Joseph & Company
San Francisco, United States of America
yesterday

Role details

Contract type
Permanent contract
Employment type
Full-time (> 32 hours)
Working hours
Regular working hours
Languages
English
Experience level
Senior
Compensation
$ 350K

Job location

San Francisco, United States of America

Tech stack

JavaScript
API
Artificial Intelligence
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Big Data
Cloud Computing
Distributed Systems
Fault Tolerance
Python
Node.js
Queueing Systems
RabbitMQ
Next.js
Systems Architecture
AI Infrastructure
Large Language Models
Backend
Event Driven Architecture
Build Management
Stripe
Kafka
Build Tools
Machine Learning Operations
Data Pipelines
Data Generation

Job description

Design and build the core infrastructure powering the company's data generation, evaluation, and agentic systems - the shared platforms that let engineers and researchers run large-scale human-in-the-loop workflows, evaluation harnesses, and automated data pipelines. A highly technical role with broad ownership, working directly with the founding team to define system architecture and engineering standards.

What you'll be doing

  • Architect and develop the shared infrastructure powering data generation platforms, human-in-the-loop systems, and evaluation pipelines
  • Build systems capable of processing large-scale datasets and high-throughput workloads with strong reliability guarantees
  • Create reusable infrastructure and APIs that let product engineers and researchers build quickly and reliably on top of core systems
  • Design systems with strong observability, monitoring, and fault tolerance for production workloads at scale
  • Help define long-term system architecture across data pipelines, compute infrastructure, task orchestration, and storage systems
  • Work closely with engineers and researchers to support new AI experimentation workflows and platform capabilities
  • Define standards for system design, deployment, reliability, and infrastructure operations

Tech stack: Python and/or JavaScript (Node.js/Next.js); GCP or AWS; message queues / event-driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pub/Sub), * The infrastructure you build directly powers data generation and evaluation for leading foundation-model labs

  • Broad, foundational ownership: architect the core systems the whole company depends on, working directly with the founding team
  • Opportunity to shape the engineering organization and lead major technical initiatives as the company scales
  • Meaningful equity alongside world-class engineers and researchers

Requirements

  • 5+ years building and owning production distributed systems or platform infrastructure
  • Strong backend proficiency in Python and/or JavaScript (Node.js/Next.js)
  • Cloud infrastructure experience in GCP or AWS
  • Message queues and event-driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pub/Sub)
  • High-throughput data pipelines and asynchronous processing
  • System scalability, performance, and reliability ownership
  • Shared infrastructure, APIs, and internal platform development
  • Observability, monitoring, and fault tolerance design
  • Long-term architecture ownership across data pipelines, compute, and storage
  • Cross-functional collaboration with engineering and research teams
  • Undergraduate degree from the U.S., Canada, or the U.K

Green Flags

  • Background at FAANG, Jane Street, Citadel, Stripe, Ramp, or top-tier YC company
  • Has architected and owned production infrastructure end-to-end at scale
  • Experience building internal developer platforms or shared infrastructure at senior level
  • Experience with AI infrastructure, LLM evaluation systems, or ML pipelines
  • Has scaled early infrastructure at a high-growth startup
  • Experience designing human-in-the-loop or workflow orchestration systems
  • Defined architecture decisions and set engineering standards, not just executed them

Red Flags

  • Only mid-level or IC contributor experience with no architectural ownership
  • Background exclusively at large legacy enterprises or slow-moving companies
  • Has never owned a production system end-to-end
  • No cloud infrastructure depth in GCP or AWS
  • No experience with high-throughput or distributed systems
  • Under 5 years of experience

About the company

A well-funded AI research lab (Series A) that builds the data-generation, evaluation, and agentic infrastructure used to train frontier AI models, with leading foundation-model labs among its customers. Backed by top-tier venture investors and prominent AI-industry angels, with a founding team drawn from leading quant firms, big tech, and top AI research labs.

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