Founding Backend Engineer

Founding Backend Engineer

$240,000 – $300,000 base + equity

United States (Remote)

Company

A venture-backed AI platform company building enterprise-grade data infrastructure and custom AI systems for large-scale organizations.

Introduction

This company is redefining how enterprises adopt AI by building deeply integrated, production-grade AI systems and agent workflows. Partnering with some of the world’s most sophisticated investment firms and their portfolio companies, they design and deploy AI solutions that drive real operational efficiency at scale.

Having recently secured significant funding from top-tier investors, the business is entering a high-growth phase, transitioning from early traction to rapid expansion. With a small, elite team already in place, they are now hiring a Founding Infrastructure Engineer to build and scale the backbone of their platform.

Role Summary

This is a high-impact, founding role where you’ll architect and own the infrastructure powering enterprise AI workloads. You’ll design scalable, secure, multi-tenant systems from the ground up, enabling AI agents, data pipelines, and orchestration layers to operate reliably in production environments.

This is a true zero-to-one opportunity, ideal for someone who thrives in ambiguity and wants full ownership across infrastructure, DevOps, and platform security.

What You’ll Do

• Architect and build distributed backend systems for AI agent workloads and large-scale data processing
• Design and implement robust ETL pipelines to support high-quality data ingestion and transformation
• Develop internal APIs for orchestration, retrieval, and task execution across AI systems
• Lead infrastructure and DevOps practices using Terraform and Kubernetes across cloud environments
• Establish and enforce security best practices, including IAM, secrets management, and system hardening
• Build and scale multi-tenant infrastructure for enterprise deployments
• Partner closely with the CTO and founding team on platform evolution and technical strategy
• Manage and optimize data warehouse and data lake environments

What You’ll Bring

• Proven experience building and scaling infrastructure in startup or zero-to-one environments
• Strong background in distributed systems and cloud-native architecture
• Deep proficiency in Python and/or Go
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform preferred)
• Strong understanding of containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Experience implementing security best practices in production systems
• A self-starter mindset with the ability to own systems end-to-end

Tech Stack

• Python
• Terraform
• Kubernetes (K8s)
• AWS
• Snowflake / Databricks / BigQuery / Redshift / Iceberg
• Modern data lakehouse architectures

Bonus Points

• Experience with SOC2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, or similar frameworks
• Strong SQL and business intelligence experience
• Background in FinTech, Cybersecurity, or AI platforms
• Previous experience as an early engineer or startup founder

Why Join?

• Foundational, first-of-its-kind infrastructure role with full ownership
• Work on cutting-edge AI systems deployed in real enterprise environments
• High-caliber, deeply technical founding team
• Backed by top-tier investors with strong market momentum
• Above-market compensation and meaningful equity
• Opportunity to shape both the platform and engineering culture from day one

About People In AI

People In AI is a specialist recruitment partner focused on building world-class AI and engineering teams. We work closely with high-growth companies to connect exceptional talent with impactful opportunities at the forefront of AI innovation.