Senior Backend/Data Engineer

Senior Backend / Data Engineer

Compensation: $180k - $250k base

Location: San Mateo, CA (Hybrid)

We're partnering with a well-funded AI startup building an intelligent platform to transform how the built environment is planned, designed, and developed.

Backed by leading technology investors with approximately $26M raised, the company combines AI, geospatial intelligence, and complex regulatory data to improve decision-making across housing, construction, and sustainability.

They're looking for a Senior Backend / Data Engineer to build the backend systems, agent infrastructure, and data pipelines powering their AI-native platform.

What You'll Do

• Build agent harnesses coordinating LLM calls, tool execution, and multi-step workflows.
• Design scalable Python backend services supporting AI inference, orchestration, and production applications.
• Develop reliable data pipelines for complex, messy, and geospatial datasets.
• Engineer workflow state management, failure recovery, and observability for AI agents.
• Partner with AI engineers to deploy, evaluate, and monitor AI services.
• Own technical projects end-to-end, from architecture through production.

What You'll Bring

• Strong software engineering experience, with Python and backend development skills.
• Experience building and deploying complex production systems.
• Strong understanding of orchestration, data pipelines, and system reliability.
• Ideally, experience with AI agents, LLM applications, or agent infrastructure.
• Comfortable with broad ownership, ambiguity, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Bonus: Infrastructure as code, geospatial data, or early-stage startup experience.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Python, APIs, scalable services
• AI: LLMs, agent harnesses, tool orchestration
• Data: Data pipelines, multimodal and geospatial datasets
• Infrastructure: Cloud deployment, CI/CD, observability

Why Join?

• Build production AI agent systems at an exciting stage of growth.
• Shape the backend architecture and data foundations from the ground up.
• Take significant technical ownership alongside a multidisciplinary team.
• Work on meaningful challenges across housing, sustainability, and the built environment.
• Join a well-funded startup with strong backing and ambitious plans.

About People In AI

People In AI connects exceptional AI and engineering talent with innovative startups and technology companies building the future of artificial intelligence.