> Markdown version of [/jobs/ext/2709153-backend-engineer-ai-platform](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2709153-backend-engineer-ai-platform). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Backend Engineer (AI Platform) - **Company:** AZX INCORPORATED - **Location:** Seattle, WA, United States (Remote available) - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Temporary contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Python (Programming Language), PostgreSQL, Lua (Scripting Language), Routing, Redis, SQLAlchemy, Data Streaming, Management of Software Versions, Large Language Models, Backend, Fastapi, Celery - **Published:** September 4, 2026 - **Apply:** https://startup.jobs/senior-backend-engineer-ai-platform-azx-9760575 ## About the Role * 5+ years of deep, production async Python - cancellation scopes, streaming lifecycle, and connection pooling * Postgres as infrastructure - comfortable reasoning about MVCC, advisory locks, and vacuum discipline, with Redis/Dragonfly used (and not used) where it belongs; real distributed-systems experience, not just familiarity. * Experience shipping API surfaces other engineers build on - versioning, idempotency, error vocabularies, migration discipline, and documentation to match. * Depth in at least one of LLM gateway concern (routing, metering, guardrails, provider failover) or retrieval engineering (hybrid search, reranking, eval methodology, audit-ready RAG), with credibility on the other. * A cost accounting and evals first mindset - you've shipped a gate or harness that caught a real regression, ideally one of your own. * Production depth in some modern stack, and the aptitude to ramp quickly on unfamiliar tools * Practical familiarity with our core stack - Python 3.12+ (async, type-strict, FastAPI/Starlette, Pydantic v2), asyncpg/SQLAlchemy, Postgres (incl. pgvector), and Redis/Dragonfly with Lua - with willingness to research into the rest. * Exposure to the surrounding ecosystem: OpenTelemetry (incl. GenAI conventions), SSE/streaming lifecycles, OpenAI/Anthropic provider APIs, job frameworks (Celery/Dramatiq/Prefect-class), rate-limit algorithms (token bucket, GCRA), and integer-cents money handling. * Past work in energy, real estate, utilities, climate or related fields is a plus * Experience in both startup and enterprise environments is a plus ## Description As a Backend Engineer you will build the services our products and client solutions run on. The center of gravity is LLM infrastructure: the layer that puts one governed front door over many models, hosted and self-hosted, and answers the questions enterprises actually ask - who used which model, for what, at what cost, under whose rules. The platform's first customers are our own client-facing engineers, the people delivering client outcomes with what you build, so requirements arrive concrete, feedback arrives same-day, and the people you support are in the same meeting., * Own the LLM gateway: routing, metering, budgets, guardrail composition, and provider/backend adapters across hosted and self-hosted models. * Manage the retrieval and knowledge service: connectors, chunking, hybrid search and reranking, grounded answers, and the MCP surface. * Build the eval harness that turns retrieval tuning from judgment into evidence, with confidence intervals and per-segment breakdowns. * Own the async framework - its public API, rate-limit algorithms, and admin tooling - and lead its evolution into durable execution for agent runs. * Design authorization across the whole surface: token hierarchies, capability grammars, and per-tenant isolation tested as a regression, not asserted in a doc. * Own your own definition of done on everything you ship: evals, traces, cost accounting, and the dashboard that would wake you up. ## Related Videos - [Reducing LLM Calls with Vector Search Patterns - Raphael De Lio (Redis)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1714-reducing-llm-calls-with-vector-search-patterns-raphael-de-lio-redis) - [Celery on AWS ECS - the art of background tasks & continuous deployment](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/561-celery-on-aws-ecs-the-art-of-background-tasks-continuous-deployment) - [Creating a routing app with Google Maps API from scratch](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/831-creating-a-routing-app-with-google-maps-api-from-scratch) - [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) - [A Technical Introduction to Bitcoin's 2nd Layer- The Lightning Network](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/15-a-technical-introduction-to-bitcoin-s-2nd-layer-the-lightning-network) - [Walking into the era of Supply Chain Risks](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/376-walking-into-the-era-of-supply-chain-risks) ## Related Articles - [How to Become an AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/331-how-to-become-an-ai-engineer) - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [Graph and AI Trends 2026: Why Is AI Running but Not Yet Delivering?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/680-graph-and-ai-trends-2026-why-is-ai-running-but-not-yet-delivering) - [The 7 Most Popular Backend Frameworks for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/403-the-7-most-popular-backend-frameworks-for-developers) - [Dev Digest 120 - Apple and peers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/455-dev-digest-120-apple-and-peers)