Senior Backend Engineer, Core Platform & Scale

Lightningai; New York, San Francisco (NY, CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Health Coverage

Equity (RSUs)

401(k) matching

Pension contributions (UK)

Unlimited PTO

Winter break

Parental leave

Learning & development allowance

Wellness stipend

Sabbatical after 4 years

Hybrid work model

Office meals

Job summary

Lightning AI, the company behind PyTorch Lightning, seeks a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and scale core backend systems powering the Lightning AI Studio. You’ll collaborate with product, infra, and AI teams to improve reliability, scalability, and developer experience across the platform.

Based in one of our hubs (San Francisco, NYC, or London) with a minimum of 2 in-office days per week, you will lead architectural initiatives, mentor engineers, and help shape the future of our

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building scalable backend systems.
• Experience designing and operating distributed/cloud-native services.
• Experience building APIs/platform services used by other engineers.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, and major cloud platforms.
• Strong focus on software quality, automated testing, observability, and CD.
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives from architecture to production.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration.
• Thrives in fast-moving, ambiguous startup environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services powering Lightning AI Studio.
• Develop APIs and platform services for authentication, resource management, multi-tenancy, and developer workflows.
• Improve reliability, observability, scalability, and performance of core platform infrastructure.
• Partner with product, infra, and AI engineering to deliver new platform capabilities.
• Evaluate and improve architecture, engineering processes, and ops tooling.
• Mentor engineers and establish engineering best practices.

Skills

Go/Python/Rust/React

Distributed systems

APIs & platform services

Kubernetes & Docker

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Software quality & observability

Technical leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Startup environment adaptability

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

Lightning AI, the company behind PyTorch Lightning, seeks a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and scale core backend systems powering the Lightning AI Studio. You’ll collaborate with product, infra, and AI teams to improve reliability, scalability, and developer experience across the platform.

Based in one of our hubs (San Francisco, NYC, or London) with a minimum of 2 in-office days per week, you will lead architectural initiatives, mentor engineers, and help shape the future of our