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# Senior Backend Engineer

- **Company:** David Joseph & Company
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $210,000.0 - $285,000.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Databases, Database Design, Distributed Systems, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, Query Optimization, Queueing Systems, RabbitMQ, Search Technologies, Indexer, Backend, Apache Kafka, Machine Learning Operations, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Data Pipelines
- **Published:** August 10, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=81eb01c6e9157839

## About the Role

* 3-6 years of professional backend engineering experience (this band is firm)
 * A bachelor's degree from a well-regarded university
 * Strong distributed-systems background across queues, pipelines, and observability
 * Hands-on database ownership, especially PostgreSQL schema design, indexing, and query optimization
 * A track record of shipping backend systems end-to-end with minimal supervision in fast-moving, ambiguous environments
 * Real startup experience at a company of 10+ people (not exclusively big-tech backgrounds)
 * Based in San Francisco or ready to relocate - this role is fully in-person, * Prior founding-engineer or early-stage startup experience
 * Experience building AI/ML pipeline infrastructure or document processing at scale
 * Experience shipping distributed systems to production end-to-end
 * Strong architectural judgment - comfortable making trade-offs quickly and revisiting them as needs change
 * A bias toward owning problems and outcomes rather than just tickets
 * For candidates from top CS programs, 3+ years of relevant experience

## Description

You'll own the core data infrastructure behind an AI-driven logistics platform - designing and scaling the systems that ingest, process, and serve real-time logistics data across AI pipelines, queues, databases, and search. This is a high-ownership role with real autonomy and direct collaboration with the founding team, setting technical direction for the backend from day one.

What you'll be doing

 * Architect and scale distributed backend systems - queue pipelines, communication hubs, and observability - designed to fail gracefully with retries, circuit breakers, and degradation strategies
 * Own database design and reliability: schema design, indexing, query optimization, and data pipelines that stay in sync at scale
 * Build AI search infrastructure for real-time logistics lookup and AI-driven features
 * Define service boundaries and set backend engineering standards
 * Partner directly with founders on roadmap and technical direction
 * Help hire and mentor backend engineers as the team grows

Tech stack: PostgreSQL; message queues (Kafka / RabbitMQ / SQS); event-driven and distributed systems; search infrastructure (Elasticsearch / pgvector); AI/ML pipelines


## Related Videos

- [Optimizing Discovery: PostgreSQL's Role in Transforming GetYourGuide's Search](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1647-optimizing-discovery-postgresql-s-role-in-transforming-getyourguide-s-search)
- [Shipping Faster with Less: Render on Cloud Hosting, AI Workloads, and the Future of DevOps](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1894-shipping-faster-with-less-render-on-cloud-hosting-ai-workloads-and-the-future-of-devops)
- [Beyond Kafka & RabbitMQ: Why NATS is the Future of Microservices Messaging](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1646-beyond-kafka-rabbitmq-why-nats-is-the-future-of-microservices-messaging)
- [Developing the Backend with Stefan Lingler, CTO at Shpock](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100360-developing-the-backend-with-stefan-lingler-cto-at-shpock)
- [Meet Your New BFF: Backend to Frontend without the Duct Tape](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/682-meet-your-new-bff-backend-to-frontend-without-the-duct-tape)
- [Postgres in the Age of AI (and Devin)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1042-postgres-in-the-age-of-ai-and-devin)

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