Senior Backend Engineer

Thomas Talent Network; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 285,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential client in San Francisco, CA is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to own the core data infrastructure powering an AI-driven logistics platform. This high-ownership, zero-to-one role will design and scale systems that ingest, process, and serve real-time logistics data across AI pipelines, queues, databases, and search layers.

You will define service boundaries, set backend engineering standards, and work closely with founders on roadmap and technical direction, with opportunities to

Qualifications

• 3–6 years of professional software engineering experience
• Bachelor's degree from a reputable university

Responsibilities

• Architect and scale distributed backend systems, design queue pipelines, communication hubs, and observability layers; build for failure with retry strategies, circuit breakers, and graceful degradation
• Own database design and reliability, schema design, indexing, query optimization, and data pipelines that keep systems in sync at scale
• Build an AI search infrastructure for real-time logistics lookup and AI-driven features
• Define service boundaries and set engineering standards for the backend
• Collaborate directly with founders on roadmap and technical direction
• Help hire and mentor future backend engineers as the team scales

Skills

Software engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Confidential client — a Seed-stage company building AI agents that work alongside logistics teams to automate operational tasks in customs brokerage and global trade.

The platform cuts customs clearance times to under 5 minutes and has delivered 30,000+ hours back to brokerage teams, with strong month-over-month revenue growth and customers processing meaningful operational volume daily. Backed by top venture investors; deeply technical founding team.

Full-Time, In-person, San Francisco, CA. Experience: 3-6 years. Salary: $210,000-$285,000/yr. Visa sponsorship: H-1B, O-1, OPT.

The Role: As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will own the core data infrastructure powering the AI-driven logistics platform. This is a high-ownership, zero-to-one role; you'll design and scale the systems that ingest, process, and serve real-time logistics data across AI pipelines, queues, databases, and search layers. You'll set technical direction for the backend, operate with significant autonomy, and have an outsized impact on product reliability and performance from day one.

What You'll Do:

• Architect and scale distributed backend systems, design queue pipelines, communication hubs, and observability layers; build for failure with retry strategies, circuit breakers, and graceful degradation
• Own database design and reliability, schema design, indexing, query optimization, and data pipelines that keep systems in sync at scale
• Build an AI search infrastructure for real-time logistics lookup and AI-driven features
• Define service boundaries and set engineering standards for the backend
• Collaborate directly with founders on roadmap and technical direction
• Help hire and mentor future backend engineers as the team scales

Requirements (Must-Have):

• 3 to 6 years of professional software engineering experience (strictly within this band)
• Bachelor's degree from a reputable university

Company stage: Seed. Work type: In-person (San Francisco, CA).