Backend Engineer

Cardboard, Inc.; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,700,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Founding-team equity

Unlimited tokens across AI models

Budget for AI tools and peripherals

Job summary

Cardboard, Inc. is hiring a Backend Engineer to own services and data models for export, media preprocessing, analysis, and editor-driven workflows. You’ll design scalable backend systems that withstand large media files, flaky uploads, GPU workers, and rapid progress updates.

You’ll work with a team that values craft and delivering practical solutions fast, turning product goals into concrete backend plans using TypeScript, Go, Rust, or Python depending on the problem.

Qualifications

• Experience designing production-grade backend systems.
• Strong understanding of distributed architectures and data models.
• Ability to translate product goals into practical backend plans with clear state management.

Responsibilities

• Own backend systems for exports, proxies, media preprocessing, analysis, and editor workflows.
• Improve long-running media workflows including uploads, exports, processing jobs, progress tracking, and recovery.
• Keep backend components simple to scale with growing projects and usage.

Skills

TypeScript

Go

Rust

Python

Distributed systems

Backend design

Tools

FFmpeg

GStreamer

Job description

We're building the future of storytelling and video editing.

We're a small team that moves fast and builds things we're proud of.

We care obsessively about taste: in design, in product, in every detail.

We're backed by a Tier-1 global fund, YC, and founders of billion dollar companies.

Video is the most powerful way humans tell stories. It always has been. But creating it today is still painfully hard.Fragmented tools, steep learning curves, and workflows that get in the way of the actual creative work. We're buildingCardboard to change that.

We're hiring a Backend Engineer to own those systems. You'll design services, job flows, and data models that stay fastand correct under messy real-world media: huge files, flaky uploads, GPU workers, and users who expect progress inseconds, not minutes.

You'll be working alongside a team of engineers who all care deeply about craft, including the founders. You like owningproblems end to end, and you'd rather ship something great this week than something perfect next quarter.

What you'll actually do

Own backend systems for exports, proxies, media preprocessing, analysis, and agent-powered editing.

Improve long-running media workflows: uploads, exports, processing jobs, progress, and recovery.

Keep the backend simple enough to operate as projects, files, and usage grow.

You've owned production backend systems and kept them healthy as the product changed.

You think clearly about state, queues, workers, files, and the contracts between them.

You can turn product goals like faster exports or instant-feeling uploads into a practical backend plan.

You care about media: formats, codecs, model output, processing time, and the final quality users see.

You're language-flexible. TypeScript, Go, Rust, Python: you'll use whatever fits the problem.

Bonus: deep FFmpeg or GStreamer experience, or codec internals knowledge across formats like ProRes, H.264/H.265,BRAW, R3D, DNx, and others.

What you get

You'd be surrounded by people who are absurdly good at what they do. One started coding at 11 and shipped an app with 6M+ downloads in high school. One got into CS engineering at 14 and has been working on distributed systems for 8+ years. One's an ex-founder who took a company to 1.2M users and $300M+ in transactions. That's the team. We're looking for someone who'll raise the bar on technical craftsmanship and product quality. Apart from that you'd get:

Competitive salary and founding-team equity.

Unlimited tokens across every AI model. Use whatever you want, as much as you want.

A healthy budget for AI tools and any peripherals you need to do your best work.