Senior Backend Engineer

Wavesurge AI; Singapore; On-site; SGD 153,000 - 229,000; Full time

Job summary

Wavesurge AI is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer (AI Products) for a remote role, preferably based in Shanghai or Singapore. The candidate will own the backend architecture of a complex AI product, drive performance optimization, and coordinate across frontend and backend teams to deliver polished releases.

The role emphasizes product thinking, scalability, and maintaining high quality across the product lifecycle, with strong collaboration and ownership expectations.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years backend development experience with architecture ownership.
• Strong system design for high-concurrency, distributed systems.
• Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools and applying them to real projects.
• Experience optimizing AI product performance and identifying bottlenecks.
• Strong product design thinking, evaluating requirements from user/product perspectives.
• Excellent project ownership and execution skills; independent progress tracking.
• Fluent in Chinese (required).

Responsibilities

• Own the design and implementation of the product's backend architecture for high-concurrency systems.
• Make effective use of AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering efficiency and code quality.
• Analyze and optimize AI product performance, including inference speed and latency.
• Bring a product design mindset to technical decisions and balance business needs with feasibility.
• Oversee product development details and own final delivery outcomes.
• Coordinate frontend and backend engineers, lead integration testing and timely releases.
• participate in design reviews and roadmap planning for ongoing evolution.

Skills

Backend architecture

System design

AI tools usage

Performance optimization

Product design sense

Cross-functional collaboration

Ownership

Job description

Location: Remote (based in Shanghai or Singapore preferred)

Employment Type: Full-time

About the Role

Senior Backend Engineer (AI Products)

Location: Remote (based in Shanghai or Singapore preferred)

Employment Type: Full-time

About the Role

We're looking for a senior backend engineer who can independently own the architecture of a complex product and drive deep performance optimization work on our AI products. This role goes beyond writing code — it requires product thinking, the ability to stay on top of every detail across the product, and the ability to coordinate frontend and backend teams to take a product from design through to a polished, shipped release.

Responsibilities

• Own the design and implementation of the product's overall backend architecture, addressing the challenges of high-concurrency, high-complexity systems while ensuring scalability, stability, and maintainability.
• Make effective use of AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering efficiency and code quality, and stay current on best practices in AI-assisted engineering.
• Analyze and optimize AI product performance — inference speed, resource consumption, response latency, and other bottlenecks — to continuously improve overall system efficiency.
• Bring a product design mindset to technical decisions, balancing business requirements against technical feasibility rather than simply implementing specs as given.
• Oversee the fine-grained details of the product development process and take full ownership of product quality and final delivery outcomes.
• Coordinate frontend and backend engineers on scheduling and API alignment, lead integration testing and QA, and ensure the product ships on time and at a high bar of quality.
• Participate in technical design reviews and roadmap planning, driving the continued evolution of both the product and its technology.

Requirements

• 3-5 years of backend development experience, including experience independently architecting and shipping a complex product from the ground up.
• Strong system design skills, with a solid understanding of common patterns and solutions for high-concurrency, distributed systems.
• Proficient with AI-assisted development/coding tools, with a track record of applying them on real projects to improve engineering efficiency.
• Experience optimizing the performance of AI products, with a clear understanding of the key factors affecting AI application performance and the ability to propose effective solutions.
• Strong product design sensibility — able to evaluate requirements and technical approaches from a user and product perspective, not just an engineering one.
• Strong project ownership and execution skills, able to independently manage the details and progress of complex projects and take responsibility for outcomes.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills, able to effectively coordinate frontend and backend resources and drive integration testing and delivery.
• Fluent in Chinese (required).
• High sense of ownership and self-motivation, able to maintain quality with minimal oversight.

Nice to Have

• Experience independently leading a team or taking a product from 0 to 1 launch.
• Experience with AI / large language model-based products.
• Experience building creator or freelancer marketplace products.