Senior Software Engineer, Backend — AI Platform

NewsBreak; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 118,000 - 212,000; Full time

Job summary

NewsBreak, based in Mountain View, CA, is seeking a hands‑on Senior Backend Engineer to modernize our live services. You’ll lead the architecture upgrade for backend systems, build AI‑safe production infrastructure, and automate complex workflows.

The role emphasizes reliability, scalability, and strong Java expertise on a high‑traffic platform. You will contribute to large‑scale recommendation and ads systems, with a dual focus on architecture and delivering business impact.

Qualifications

• 5+ years backend experience with strong Java
• Experience leading backend architecture design for high‑QPS systems
• Proficient with Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience refactoring live production systems with safe rollout
• Prior exposure to LLM-agent or AIOps is a bonus

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture upgrade of backend services, defining clean interfaces and observability
• Build infrastructure enabling AI agents to act safely in production
• Automate high‑toil engineering tasks into reliable self‑serve systems
• Deliver backend capabilities for product initiatives (experiments, growth systems)
• Own reliability through observability, rollback safety and post‑mortem learning

Skills

Backend experience

Java

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Architecture design

Safe rollout

Job description

About NewsBreak

Founded in 2015, NewsBreak is the Content Intelligence platform shaping the future content economy. With over 40 million monthly active users, our flagship platform delivers highly personalized local news and information powered by advanced AI, recommendation systems, and adtech.

About NewsBreak

Founded in 2015, NewsBreak is the Content Intelligence platform shaping the future content economy. With over 40 million monthly active users, our flagship platform delivers highly personalized local news and information powered by advanced AI, recommendation systems, and adtech.

Recognized by Fast Company as #32 on the Top Workplaces for Innovators, we’re proud to be Great Place to Work® certified and home to a dynamic team of technologists, product innovators, and business leaders who are passionate about solving meaningful challenges at scale.

Together, we reached unicorn status in 2021, and we remain committed to continuing this high‑growth trajectory with the right team to fulfill our mission: building the infrastructure layer for content intelligence.

Location: Mountain View, CA

About The Team

NewsBreak runs production AI agents today — they diagnose live incidents, analyze metrics, and triage user feedback. We’re now upgrading our backend architecture to be AI‑native: systems designed so that agents, tooling, and engineers can all operate them safely. This is a hands‑on engineering role — you’ll modernize live, high‑traffic services behind NewsBreak’s recommendation serving at scale, with a dual mandate: roughly half your time advances the architecture, half ships business impact.

What you’ll do

• Lead the architecture upgrade of our backend services — untangle legacy boundaries, define clean interfaces, build in first‑class observability — and land it incrementally on live, high‑QPS systems.
• Build the infrastructure that lets AI agents act safely in production.
• Automate high‑toil engineering workflows into reliable, self‑serve systems.
• Deliver backend capabilities for product initiatives (experiments, growth systems, serving changes) when the business needs them.
• Own reliability for what you build: observability, safe rollback, and lessons that feed the team’s knowledge base.

What we’re looking for

• 5+ years backend; strong Java; Kubernetes and CI/CD.
• You’ve led backend architecture design — service boundaries, data flows, high‑QPS systems — ideally in large‑scale recommendation, search, or ads systems, and lived with the consequences.
• You’ve refactored live production systems without breaking them: incremental migration, shadow verification, safe rollout are second nature.
• Rigorous about safety: you design for rollback and blast‑radius control by default.
• Bonus: LLM-agent / AIOps exposure.

The US base salary range for this full‑time position is listed below. Pay may vary based on a number of factors including job‑related skills, level, experience, geographic location and relevant education or training. At NewsBreak, we design our overall rewards package to attract top talents. Depending on the position, the role may also be eligible for discretionary bonus and options. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.

Annual Base Pay Range

$118,000 - $212,000 USD

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