Senior AI-First Backend Architect

Avalara Technologies; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Avalara Technologies is accelerating its AI-first transformation to build production-grade AI capabilities for complex cross-border tax classification. We seek a Staff Software Development Engineer to design scalable, cloud-native backend services and AI-enabled workflows that process massive catalogs with low latency.

You will lead design of distributed features, implement in Java (Spring Boot) and Python (FastAPI), deploy on AWS EKS, and integrate retrieval-augmented generation pipelines with

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with senior ownership and impact.
• Experience designing distributed backend systems with RESTful APIs, microservices, and event-driven architectures.
• Proficiency in Java (Spring Boot) or Python (FastAPI / asyncio).
• Hands-on experience integrating LLMs or ML models into production systems.
• Experience deploying and operating services on cloud infrastructure (AWS) using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Proven AI-driven improvements in engineering/product outcomes; solid collaboration in cross-functional teams.
• Excellent communication in a globally distributed environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end design of complex, distributed features and agentic AI workflows from data flow to deployment and observability.
• Build high-quality backend services and APIs in Java (Spring Boot) and Python (FastAPI); design async pipelines with AWS SQS.
• Deploy and operate cloud services on Kubernetes (AWS EKS) with observability and security best practices.
• Develop multi-step AI pipelines using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and vector databases with human-in-the-loop escalation.
• Extend MCP server capabilities to expose classification APIs for AI agents and partner platforms.
• Mentor junior engineers, perform code reviews, and drive AI adoption across a globally distributed team.

Skills

Java (Spring Boot)

Python (FastAPI)

RESTful APIs

Microservices

Distributed systems

Event-driven architectures

Cloud platforms (AWS)

Kubernetes

AI/ML integration

Code reviews & mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS (SQS, EKS)

Job description

Avalara Technologies is accelerating its AI-first transformation to build production-grade AI capabilities for complex cross-border tax classification. We seek a Staff Software Development Engineer to design scalable, cloud-native backend services and AI-enabled workflows that process massive catalogs with low latency.

You will lead design of distributed features, implement in Java (Spring Boot) and Python (FastAPI), deploy on AWS EKS, and integrate retrieval-augmented generation pipelines with