Senior Backend Engineer: Real-Time, AWS & Distributed

Otto AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Otto AI is seeking an exceptional backend engineer to own core backend systems, AWS infrastructure, and real-time services for a distributed AI platform. You will design data models, implement production-grade services, and ensure secure, reliable operation across devices and cloud components.

The role requires ownership, strong judgment, and the ability to ship complex changes safely. You will work across Linux devices, cloud services, and client apps to deliver scalable AI integrations.

Qualifications

• Shipping and operating production backend systems with ownership
• Hands-on AWS and CDK experience in production
• Strong TypeScript and Node.js proficiency
• Practical distributed systems knowledge: concurrency, retries, timeouts
• Relational database design, transactions, indexing, migrations
• Excellent technical judgment and boundary-definition abilities
• Urgency paired with follow-through and accountability

Responsibilities

• Own architecture and implementation from service boundaries to deployment
• Build on AWS with CDK including compute, networking, IAM, storage, observability
• Make real-time systems reliable: persistent connections, streaming, routing, reconnects
• Build critical infrastructure: authentication, model routing, background jobs, billing
• Protect users: explicit authorization, isolated credentials, clear trust boundaries
• Ship changes safely: evolve schemas and services while devices run in customers’ homes
• Make the team faster: reduce complexity and establish reusable patterns

Skills

TypeScript

Node.js

Distributed systems

Technical judgment

Ownership

Urgency

Communication

Tools

AWS CDK

AWS

PostgreSQL

Redis

WebSockets

Job description

Otto AI is seeking an exceptional backend engineer to own core backend systems, AWS infrastructure, and real-time services for a distributed AI platform. You will design data models, implement production-grade services, and ensure secure, reliable operation across devices and cloud components.

The role requires ownership, strong judgment, and the ability to ship complex changes safely. You will work across Linux devices, cloud services, and client apps to deliver scalable AI integrations.