Backend / Systems Engineer

QofAI; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

QofAI is hiring a backend-focused engineer to own the core data systems and services that power our AI-driven platform. You will scope vague problems into concrete multi-month plans and ship robust, scalable solutions that others build upon.

You will stay hands-on in code, drive architectural decisions, and mentor teammates to improve technical judgment and overall product reliability. Remote work is available from major hubs, with US-wide collaboration.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in backend and distributed systems, focusing on data, reliability, and performance.
• Led multi-month technical initiatives from ambiguity to shipped production software.
• Strong technical judgment on trade-offs, robustness, and ship-ready decisions.

Responsibilities

• Design backend and data systems that other engineers depend on and own architectural decisions.
• Scope ambiguous problems into multi-month plans and deliver production-ready solutions.
• Ensure platform performance, correctness, and resilience; build for failure and graceful degradation.
• Mentor engineers, raise technical judgment, and drive alignment beyond the immediate team.
• Stay hands-on in code while coordinating with product partners.

Skills

Backend systems

Distributed systems

System design

Mentorship

Tools

Postgres

AWS

Docker

Job description

QofAI brings elite consulting and forward-deployed engineering to the middlemarket — turning artificial intelligence into measurable EBITDA growth acrossevery deal, portfolio, and business. We sit where strategy meets software: workingalongside investors and operators, finding where AI actually moves the numbers, andthen building the systems that get it there.

When the output is a real decision about real capital, the systems underneath have tobe right. That's the bar this role sets.

The role

You'll own the backend and data systems at the core of the product — the services,pipelines, and abstractions that everyone else builds on. You'll take problems thatarrive vague and large, scope them into multi-month plans, and ship them through toproduction with the reliability and performance the work demands. You'll be one of thepeople who sets how we build at the systems level.

• Design backend and data systems that other engineers depend on, and own thearchitectural calls that shape their reliability and scale.
• Take an ambiguous, high-stakes systems problem, scope it independently, and drive itto a shipped outcome — without waiting for the path to be handed to you.
• Make the platform fast and dependable where it counts: the performance, correctness,and resilience that let people trust what the product tells them.
• Build for failure — anticipating where things break and designing so they degradegracefully rather than catastrophically.
• Raise the team's technical judgment through design review, the patterns youestablish, and the standard your own work sets.
• Stay hands-on in the code while driving alignment across the engineers and productpartners who build around your systems.

What we're looking for

We care about depth and judgment far more than any particular technology — we won'tprescribe a language or a framework. We're looking for engineers with at least 5years of experience who:

• Have deep expertise in backend and distributed systems — data, reliability,performance — and have designed systems that others built on top of.
• Have led complex, multi-month technical initiatives from ambiguity to shippedproduction software.
• Have strong technical judgment: you know which trade-offs matter, when to invest inrobustness, and when "good enough, shipped" is the right call.
• Bring a product-minded eye to systems work — building for the outcome, not just thearchitecture diagram.
• Make the engineers around you better through mentorship, review, and example, andcan drive alignment beyond your immediate team.

Nice to have

• Depth in one of Python, Go, or Rust — we don't care which; the depth is the point.
• Postgres and data-at-scale experience — schema design, query performance, thefailure modes that show up under load.
• Hands-on with AWS and containers/Docker.
• Neo4j or graph databases — a strong plus, given how much of what we build isgraph-shaped.
• A track record designing a non-trivial distributed system from scratch.
• Experience with data-intensive or AI-driven products.
• Time spent where reliability had real, measurable consequences.

Location & compensation

This role is open remote and from any of our three HQs — the San Francisco BayArea, Pittsburgh, and Austin. We offer competitive compensation and thekind of foundational ownership that's hard to find: systems that matter, and thelatitude to build them right.