Principal Backend Engineer

present of AI; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Qualified Health seeks a senior hands-on backend leader to set the technical direction for the core platform in a healthcare AI environment. You will design distributed systems, cloud-native services, APIs and data models, and you will still write and review code while mentoring other seniors.

The role requires guiding multiple teams through architectural trade-offs, ensuring reliability, safety, and privacy in clinical settings, and fostering a culture of rigorous review and secure design.

Qualifications

• Deep experience with distributed systems
• Cloud-native services
• API and data design
• Strong Python or other modern backend language
• Experience running large production systems
• Mentor senior engineers while coding and reviewing
• Guide teams through architectural disagreements
• Ensure security and safety in clinical settings

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction for the core backend of the healthcare AI platform
• Lead and mentor multiple engineering teams
• Review and write code to maintain quality and speed
• Navigate architectural trade-offs for reliability and scalability
• Promote secure, privacy-conscious design in clinical environments

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

API design

Data design

Python

Mentoring

Code review

Production systems

Job description

This is a senior hands-on role that sets the technical direction for the core backend of a healthcare AI platform. It asks for deep experience with distributed systems, cloud-native services, API and data design, and strong skill in Python or another modern backend language. A strong candidate has run large production systems, can guide several teams through disagreements, and mentors other senior engineers while still writing and reviewing code.

How it fits the AI era

The platform governs AI use, builds healthcare agents, and monitors algorithms, so the backend has to handle AI workloads reliably and safely. AI tools can speed up coding and review, and the role is expected to encourage that way of working. Judgment about architecture trade-offs, security, and what is safe in a clinical setting stays with people.

How it builds AI experience

Someone in this role would gain close experience with the infrastructure behind governed generative AI, including agent creation and live monitoring of models, in work with health systems. Candidates without that background can build it by making a small LLM-powered workflow with logging, access controls, and evaluation, and by learning how privacy rules shape AI system design.

Worth showing

• Multi-tenant SaaS security and isolation
• Mentoring and cross-team technical leadership

This is our own read, written from the employer's posting and the company's Spotlight. The employer's posting is the source of truth for the role.

About Qualified Health

Qualified Health provides a healthcare-native enterprise AI platform that unifies workflows, use cases, and models under a single governed operating layer, per the company.