Senior / Principal Backend Engineer

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 is a personal AI device that runs agents, connects to people’s apps, and gets work done. The product spans a Linux device runtime, cloud infrastructure, mobile and desktop clients, and integrations with external applications and AI providers.

We’re looking for an exceptional backend engineer who wants substantial ownership of that system: someone with the technical depth to solve difficult problems, the drive to move quickly, and the discipline to deliver software people can depend on.

Who you are

You’re hungry to build something ambitious. You learn unfamiliar systems quickly, get to the heart of complicated problems, and find simple solutions where others keep adding complexity.

You have strong opinions and can explain the reasoning behind them. You also change your mind when the evidence changes. You can think several steps ahead without turning every decision into a planning exercise.

Most importantly, people can count on you. You follow through, surface problems early, and take responsibility for what happens after your code ships. When something breaks, you investigate, communicate clearly, and see the fix through.

What you’ll do

• Own architecture and implementation. Design and build core backend systems, from service boundaries and data models to production code and deployment.
• Build on AWS. Own cloud infrastructure through AWS CDK, including compute, networking, IAM, storage, observability, and deployment workflows.
• Make real-time systems reliable. Handle persistent connections, streaming, message routing, reconnects, and partial failures across devices and cloud services.
• Build critical product infrastructure. Work on authentication, integrations, model routing, background jobs, usage accounting, billing, and device operations.
• Protect users. Keep authorization explicit, credentials isolated, and trust boundaries clear.
• Ship changes safely. Evolve schemas, protocols, and services while supporting devices already running in customers’ homes.
• Make the team faster. Resolve technical uncertainty, remove unnecessary complexity, and establish patterns other engineers can confidently build on.

What you bring

• A strong record of shipping and operating production backend systems, with clear examples of work you personally owned.
• Substantial hands-on AWS experience. You understand how services behave in production and can reason about permissions, networking, failure modes, performance, and cost.
• Production experience with AWS CDK. You’ve built and maintained infrastructure as code and understand how to deploy, evolve, and recover it safely.
• Strong TypeScript and Node.js skills, with enough depth to debug beyond the application layer when necessary.
• Practical distributed systems knowledge: concurrency, idempotency, retries, timeouts, ordering, backpressure, and consistency.
• Strong relational database skills, including schema design, transactions, indexing, query performance, and safe migrations.
• Excellent technical judgment. You know when a shortcut is sensible, when a boundary matters, and when a design needs to change.
• Urgency paired with follow-through. You move work forward independently, communicate risks early, and finish what you start.

For principal-level candidates, we expect a record of setting technical direction across systems, leading difficult changes, and improving the judgment and effectiveness of the engineers around you.

Especially relevant experience

Connected devices, Linux services, WebSockets, streaming systems, fleet management, over-the-air updates, AI agent runtimes, model gateways, OAuth integrations, or usage-based billing.

You don’t need every item. We care about exceptional ability, demonstrated ownership, and how quickly you can become effective.

Our stack

TypeScript, Node.js, Hono, tRPC, Zod, PostgreSQL, Redis, and AWS CDK. Our cloud uses Lambda and ECS/Fargate. Devices run Linux and the OpenClaw agent runtime; clients use Expo and Electron.

The standard

Take a hard problem, understand it deeply, and ship a solution that holds up. Leave the system easier to understand. Be someone the team trusts with consequential work.