Backend Engineer (Member of Technical Staff)

Cogent Security; New York (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

A cutting-edge cybersecurity firm is seeking talented Backend Senior and Staff Engineers to build backend services and integrations for AI cybersecurity solutions. The ideal candidates will have 5+ years of experience and expertise in backend architecture, microservices, and programming languages like Python. This role offers an opportunity to contribute to a culture of engineering excellence and innovation while earning a competitive salary in New York.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience as a hands-on engineer and technical leader.
• Expertise in architecting, developing, and scaling backend systems.
• Strong knowledge of backend programming languages such as Python or Go.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement key backend, integration platform subsystems.
• Prepare Cogent for future headcount, customer, and data growth.
• Help create a robust engineering culture at Cogent.

Skills

Backend system architecture

Microservices

Python

Kubernetes

Docker

API design

Tools

Terraform

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

About Cogent Security

Cogent Security is on a mission to stop breaches and prevent cybercrime by innovating at the frontier of generative AI systems. We are building the world’s first AI cyber taskforce, composed of AI agents capable of human-caliber reasoning and execution of cybersecurity tasks, that autonomously protects organizations from emerging threats. The early adopters of our technology include some of the world’s most important institutions, spanning public companies, elite universities, and Fortune 500 corporations across industries.

Our Core Values

• Ambition for Excellence
  • We work backwards from the way things should be and constantly measure our progress against it
• Customer Centricity
  • We obsess over the problems our customers face and relentlessly innovate to find the best solutions
• Intellectual Honesty
  • We embrace hard conversations and actively seek the truth
• Intentionality
  • We exhibit good judgment and are thoughtful about tradeoffs
• Extreme Ownership
  • We take pride in our work and never say the words “not my problem”
• Velocity / Bias for Action
  • We don’t leave for tomorrow what can be done today

About The Role

As we work with our first design partners, Cogent is building a suite of backend services and integrations that will power our autonomous AI workers. We are looking for talented, ambitious Backend Senior and Staff Engineers who are excited to build in the Applied AI space.

What You’ll Do & Achieve

• Design and implement key backend, integration platform subsystems
  • Understand business goals, product and technology strategies and customer requirements and implement supporting backend and integration platform subsystems to achieve them
  • Adapt and evolve systems and plans to implement newly identified design partner and customer requirements
  • Adapt and evolve systems to implement non‑functional requirements (compliance, security, enterprise integration etc.)
• Laying down infrastructure foundations for growth and scalability
  • Prepare Cogent for future headcount, customer, and data growth by working with a team to design and build an infrastructure that will scale and that achieves requirements in the areas of product capabilities, non‑functional needs (reliability, security, disaster recovery, etc.).
• Help create a robust engineering culture at Cogent
  • Onboard, support and uplevel future team members
  • Participate in, provide feedback on, and iterate interview process as we scale the team up
  • Actively contribute to Engineering Excellence, Operational Excellence and Recruiting initiatives

What You’ll Bring

• 5+ years of professional experience as a hands‑on engineer and technical leader, overseeing and contributing to multiple backend systems and infrastructure projects
• Expertise in architecting, developing, and scaling backend systems, including both stateless and stateful architectures, to support high‑performance, enterprise‑level applications
• Proven experience with distributed systems, microservices, and serverless architectures, ensuring robustness, scalability, and fault tolerance
• Strong knowledge of backend programming languages such as Python, Go or similar, with a deep understanding of concurrency, memory management, and performance optimization
• Experience with API design and implementation (RESTful and/or gRPC), integrating with frontend systems, data platforms, and third‑party services
• Solid experience with containerization, orchestration, and deployment technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines in multi‑cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Compensation & Benefits

For California‑based applicants: the standard base salary range for this position is $100,000 – $300,000 annually. Compensation will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and benefits.

We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse company. We do not discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, civil or family status, age, disability, or race.