Senior Software Engineer, Backend

present of AI; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 95,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Encord is seeking an engineer to join the foundations team that builds shared backend systems used by engineers. The role focuses on databases, distributed processing, and APIs used by customers.

You will design, deploy, monitor and operate systems that scale with data volumes. A successful candidate has years of experience building and running large-scale backend services, understands distributed systems under load and failure modes, and mentors others through reviews and pairing to lift the

Qualifications

• Years of building and running large-scale backend services.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems under load and failure modes.
• Experience taking a project from design through deployment and monitoring.

Responsibilities

• Large-scale backend systems ownership and operation.
• Production service ownership across the stack.
• Code reviews and mentoring to uplift teammates.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend development

Code reviews & mentoring

Job description

This role sits on a foundations team that builds the shared backend systems other engineers depend on, with work centered on databases, distributed processing, and APIs that customers use directly. A strong candidate has spent years building and running large scale backend services, understands how distributed systems behave under load and how they fail, and can take a project from design through deployment and monitoring. The posting values people who pick simple solutions, move across the stack when needed, and lift the engineers around them through reviews and pairing.

How it fits the AI era

The company supplies the data layer that trains physical AI systems, so this engineer builds the plumbing that moves and serves large volumes of video, sensor, and image data. AI tools can speed up coding and review, but the core judgment here stays human: choosing trade offs, reasoning about failure modes, and planning systems that hold up as data volumes grow by orders of magnitude. The work is less about model building and more about making the infrastructure behind AI reliable.

How it builds AI experience

Working here gives direct exposure to the data pipelines that feed robotics and autonomous vehicle training, which is practical grounding in how AI systems get their data. A candidate can prepare by studying distributed systems fundamentals and by getting hands on with large scale data processing and storage. Familiarity with the machine learning tooling named in the stack helps, though the posting stresses openness to learning over existing coverage.

Worth showing

• Large scale backend systems
• Production service ownership
• Code review and mentoring

This is our own read, written from the employer's posting and the company's Spotlight. The employer's posting is the source of truth for the role.

About Encord

A data platform that helps AI teams manage, label and clean the video, sensor and image data that trains robots, self-driving cars and other physical AI systems.