Senior Backend Engineer (Agentic Data Platform)

Namely; Portsmouth (VA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Caraa is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to build high-performance distributed backend services for our genomics platform. You’ll own data pipelines, storage design, and event orchestration using AWS services and modern databases, ensuring fast, reliable AI-powered guidance from your systems.

You’ll collaborate with bioinformatics experts and product/design teams to ship scalable, observable backends that stay grounded in biology and science while delivering a great developer experience for a

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and operating production backend systems at scale.
• Expert-level in TypeScript, comfortable owning production services end to end.
• Strong distributed-systems fundamentals and failure modes.
• Hands-on with large-scale data processing frameworks and very large datasets.
• Deep familiarity with OLTP/OLAP data systems (PostgreSQL, DuckDB).
• Experience with distributed event-driven systems.
• Able to learn genomics quickly and go deep in a new domain.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain high-performance, fault-tolerant distributed backend services.
• Build and optimize data processing pipelines over large genomic and health datasets using Spark and DuckDB.
• Design data structures, storage, and indexing across PostgreSQL, Qdrant, and Redis for scale.
• Own async event processing and workflow orchestration using SQS, RabbitMQ, and BullMQ.
• Improve latency, throughput, and reliability via parallelism and caching.
• Implement guardrails so AI responses align with genomics evidence.
• Collaborate with bioinformatics and product/design teams.

Skills

Backend systems

TypeScript

Distributed systems

Data processing

OLTP/OLAP

PostgreSQL

DuckDB

Redis

Spark

Tools

PostgreSQL

DuckDB

Apache Spark

Redis

Qdrant

AWS SQS

RabbitMQ

BullMQ

Job description

The opportunity

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you'll build and improve the distributed backend systems behind our genomics platform. At its core, this platform is a high-throughput data processing and retrieval system with an AI-powered natural language interface - you'll work with our AI Backend Architect on the services and pipelines that make genetics-based guidance fast, accurate, and reliable. When you do this well, people can have meaningful conversations with their DNA and receive trustworthy guidance that evolves alongside advances in science and AI.

This is a backend and data engineering role. It is not an LLM-integration role, and it is not about adding AI tooling to a product.

What you'll own

• Develop and maintain high-performance and fault-tolerant distributed backend services.
• Build and optimize data processing pipelines over large genomic and health datasets using Apache Spark and DuckDB.
• Design data structures, storage and indexing strategies across PostgreSQL, Qdrant, and Redis for performance at scale.
• Own async event processing and workflow orchestration using AWS SQS, RabbitMQ, and BullMQ.
• Drive latency, throughput, and reliability through parallel execution, caching, and efficient data access.
• Build guardrail and quality assurance layers that keep AI responses anchored in real genomic and scientific evidence.
• Partner with bioinformatics experts to ensure outputs match the science, and with product/design specialists on user-facing behavior.

Who you are

• 5+ years building and operating production backend systems at scale.
• Expert-level in TypeScript, comfortable owning production services end to end.
• Strong distributed-systems fundamentals - you understand how they're designed and why they fail.
• Hands-on with large-scale data processing frameworks (Apache Spark or equivalent) and very large datasets.
• Deeply familiar with both OLTP and OLAP data systems (PostgreSQL, DuckDB)
• Solid with distributed event-driven systems.
• Able to step into an unfamiliar domain like genomics, learn the mechanics fast, and go deep.
• Craft-driven: you build systems properly with attention to detail and high bar for quality rather than assembling pre-made pieces.
• This is a fully remote role open to candidates in time zones from UTC−5 to UTC+3.

Bonus to have

• Rust, and functional programming experience (Scala or similar).
• Python for data processing.
• Experience training or fine-tuning your own AI models - not just calling APIs.
• Experience with multi-agent AI systems and orchestration (planner / router / evaluator patterns).
• Production experience with LLM APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Bedrock, Google AI)
• Production experience with vector databases and RAG pipelines.
• LLM observability tooling (Langfuse, LangSmith).
• Workflow engines (Temporal).
• Familiarity with genomics, bioinformatics, or health data systems.
• High-growth startup experience.

Why this role matters

AI is transforming how people access information. Genomics is transforming how people understand themselves.

This role sits at the convergence of both.

You’ll help build the AI systems that enable people to interact with their DNA and receive personalized guidance throughout their lives. The systems you build will help millions of people better understand their health, identify risks earlier, make more informed decisions, and benefit from advances in science that would otherwise remain inaccessible.

This is an opportunity to help create a category-defining, generational product and shape how humanity interacts with its DNA for decades to come.