Founding Backend Engineer — Equity & High-Impact Startup

Praxis, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Phaselaw, a seed-stage legal tech startup, is seeking a founding Backend Engineer to help build and scale the core product. You’ll work closely with the founders and the engineering team to ship features and improve performance across databases, data ingestion, and AI systems.

This high-ownership role offers significant impact and equity in a fast-moving environment. We value strong Python backend skills, database expertise (PostgreSQL/Elasticsearch), and modern infra tooling (Terraform,

Qualifications

• 3+ years of backend development experience.
• Strong Python backend development skills.
• Experience with Postgres and Elasticsearch.
• Familiarity with Terraform, Kubernetes and CI/CD workflows.
• Bias for action and ownership.
• Strong product sense and user experience focus.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale Phaselaw's core backend systems from databases to data ingestion and AI components.
• Ship features and improve performance with high ownership.
• Collaborate with founders and engineering team.
• Ensure reliable, scalable infrastructure.

Skills

Backend development

Python

3+ years experience

Tools

Python

PostgreSQL

Elasticsearch

Terraform

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Job description

Phaselaw, a seed-stage legal tech startup, is seeking a founding Backend Engineer to help build and scale the core product. You’ll work closely with the founders and the engineering team to ship features and improve performance across databases, data ingestion, and AI systems.

This high-ownership role offers significant impact and equity in a fast-moving environment. We value strong Python backend skills, database expertise (PostgreSQL/Elasticsearch), and modern infra tooling (Terraform,