Backend Engineer

Gradient Labs; London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A cutting-edge tech startup in London seeks a Backend Engineer to contribute to innovative AI solutions. The role involves building resilient systems and working on greenfield projects in a fast-paced environment. Ideal candidates will have experience in system performance, familiarity with tools like Go and PostgreSQL, and be excited about shaping the future of customer service through AI.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience as a Staff Engineer at a tech scale-up.
• Excited to work on greenfield projects.
• Motivated to operate in fast-paced environments.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to an 'operating system' for future AI agents.
• Build resilient and observable systems.
• Ship code early and often.

Skills

Building complex performant systems iteratively

Experience with Go

Experience with PostgreSQL

Familiarity with Google Cloud Platform

Familiarity with Next.js

Job description

At Gradient Labs, we're on a mission to make exceptional customer service the norm.

Founded in 2023 by a team of technical leaders from Monzo Bank, we've quickly gone from an idea to a growing team with customers you know (and probably love). Our AI agent helps businesses handle even the trickiest, high-stakes customer support queries safely and effectively, all while giving them the visibility and control they need to trust the outcomes.

We're a remote-first team but love getting together in London once a week to collaborate, catch up, and have occasionally been known to become overly competitive during socials (think arcade games or axe throwing ).

If you're excited to tackle some of the hardest problems in AI and help shape the future of customer service, we'd love to hear from you.

Our tech stack

We choose technology that enables us to build resilient systems and iterate on them quickly. This includes a blend of "boring" familiar tools like Go and PostgreSQL, and some calculated bets like Temporal and Encore.

Our backend is deployed to Google Cloud Platform. Our frontend is built with Next.js and deployed to Vercel. We currently use LLMs from OpenAI and Anthropic but are planning to expand to a blend of models in the future.

As a Backend Engineer, you will...

1. Have the opportunity to contribute to an "operating system" for future AI agents which is safe, scalable and allows us improve the capabilities of those agents faster than any other company out there.
2. Build resilient and observable systems that deliver great user experiences in the face of failures, retry storms, resource starvation, and other turbulent conditions.
3. Ship early and often.

We're looking for people who...

• Are excited to push the boundaries of what's possible for autonomous AI agents that imitate human behaviour
• Are keen to be one of the foundational cornerstone engineers for the company for the years to come
• Believe that almost anything is possible if you just work hard enough on it and are excited by greenfield projects rather than being demotivated by the ambiguity
• Motivated to operate in a fast-paced, early-stage company environment where we ship multiple times a day
• Have demonstrated experience building complex performant systems iteratively - for example, as a Staff Engineer at a tech scale-up
• Have "strong opinions, loosely held"

?Questions

What is the salary?

The final compensation will depend on the relevant skills and experience of the candidate but generally we pay within top 10% of comparable roles at seed stage startups.

Where is this role based?

Ideally, we're looking for someone who can come into the London office (close to Liverpool Street Station) at least once a week. However, we're open to remote work across the UK if you're able to join the team in person in London once a quarter.