Senior Backend Developer, AI Systems (Remote)

Movable Ink; Toronto (OH); Remote; USD 102,000 - 143,000; Full time

Job summary

Movable Ink is seeking a Senior Backend Developer to lead the evolution of its core recommendations engine into a scalable distributed system. You will own architecture, build robust services for content personalization, and collaborate with ML teams to translate requirements into production-ready designs.

Ideal candidates will have 5+ years in distributed systems, deep Python skills, and hands-on experience with Spark, Kubernetes, Kafka, and modern SDLC practices.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software engineering with a focus on distributed systems.
• Experience building large-scale distributed, fault-tolerant systems.
• Strong Python foundation.
• Experience with Spark, Flink, or Beam; Spark is a plus.
• Experience with AWS/Azure/GCP.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Kafka, and gRPC; Docker and GitHub Actions.
• SDLC, CI/CD, automated deployment experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural evolution of the core recommendations pipeline to a modern distributed architecture.
• Design, build, and operate scalable backend services powering personalization at scale.
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks and scaling limits.
• Collaborate with ML engineers and product stakeholders to translate requirements into designs.
• Own components end-to-end—from architecture to deployment and incident response.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering best practices.
• Champion observability and operational excellence.

Skills

Distributed systems expertise

Technical leadership

Problem solving

Mentoring

Tools

Python

Apache Spark

Apache Flink

Apache Beam

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka

gRPC

Git

CI/CD

AWS

GCP

Job description

Movable Ink scales content personalization for marketers through data-activated content generation and AI decisioning. The world's most innovative brands rely on Movable Ink to maximize revenue, simplify workflow and boost marketing agility. Headquartered in New York City with close to 600 employees, Movable Ink serves its global client base with operations throughout North America, Central America, Europe, Australia, and Japan.

The AI Systems team owns the core recommendations engine that powers billions of AI-driven marketing decisions daily across some of the world's largest consumer brands. As aSenior Backend Developer,you will lead the evolution of this system into a modern, scalable distributed architecture - one of the most impactful technical initiatives at Movable Ink. This is an opportunity to do deep distributed systems work on a production system that directly drives revenue for our customers, while shaping the technical direction of a team working at the intersection of systems engineering and machine learning.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architectural evolution of the core recommendations pipeline to a modern distributed architecture, delivering incremental value while maintaining production stability
• Design, build, and operate scalable, fault-tolerant backend services that power personalization at scale across content selection, send-time optimization, subject line personalization, and frequency capping
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, reliability risks, and scaling limitations across the system
• Collaborate with ML engineers and product stakeholders to translate requirements into rigorous technical designs with a clear path to production
• Own key system components end-to-end - from architecture and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and incident response
• Champion engineering best practices around system design, code quality, testing, observability, and operational excellence
• Mentor engineers and contribute to a culture of technical rigor, ownership, and continuous improvement

Qualifications

• 5+ years software engineering experience with a focus on distributed systems
• Deep experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems that are fault tolerant, highly available, and highly concurrent
• Exemplary software engineering skills (system design, unit testing, git, code review, CI/CD)
• Strong foundation in Python
• Experience with distributed data processing frameworks (e.g. Apache Spark, Apache Flink, Apache Beam); hands-on Spark experience is a plus
• Practical understanding of distributed systems fundamentals: consensus, partitioning, replication, back-pressure, idempotency, and failure handling
• Experience with a cloud provider e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP (we use Google Cloud Platform)
• Experience with modern distributed and microservice technologies (we use Kubernetes, Kafka, and gRPC)
• Familiar with Software Development Lifecycle practices, such as continuous integration/continuous delivery and automated deployment (we use Docker, Kubernetes, and GitHub Actions)
• Strong technical leadership skills with the ability to collaborate effectively, advocate for sound architectural decisions, and mentor other engineers
• Exceptional problem-solving skills, including the ability to efficiently identify, analyze, and resolve complex issues in production systems
• A willingness and eagerness to continuously learn, adapt to evolving technologies, and strive for personal and professional improvement

The base pay range for this position is $143k-$200k CAD/year, which can include additional bonus depending on the position ultimately offered, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. The base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Studies have shown that women, communities of color, and historically underrepresented people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive culture where all Inkers can thrive. If you're excited about the role but don't meet all of the abovementioned qualifications, we encourage you to apply. Our differences bring a breadth of knowledge and perspectives that makes us collectively stronger.

We welcome and employ people regardless of race, color, gender identity or expression, religion, genetic information, parental or pregnancy status, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, ethnicity, family or marital status, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, disability, Veteran status, or other protected characteristics. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.