Software Engineer, AI & Data Systems

Recruiting From Scratch; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity

Job summary

Recruiting From Scratch is representing a client hiring a Software Engineer for AI & Data Systems in San Francisco. The role is on-site five days per week, offering a base salary of $200,000 to $280,000 plus competitive equity.

You will work across backend engineering, data pipelines, AI agents, and infrastructure to ship production software. Ideal candidates have 1–6 years in backend/data/AI systems, production experience, strong Python, and cloud skills.

Qualifications

• 1–6 years backend/data/AI systems experience, production familiarity.
• Experience owning systems end-to-end from concept to deployment.
• Strong Python and API/backend design skills.
• Experience with large-scale data pipelines and cloud infra.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship customer-facing products across backend, data, and AI surfaces.
• Design and operate high-volume data pipelines and scalable services.
• Develop AI agents, agent harnesses, and developer tooling.
• Collaborate with founders to shape product and technical direction.

Skills

Backend engineering

Python

APIs

Distributed systems

Data pipelines

Cloud infrastructure

LLMs

AI agents

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Software Engineer, AI & Data Systems

Location - San Francisco, CA (On-site) - Five days per week in-office in San Francisco.

Compensation - $200,000 -- $280,000 Base + Competitive Equity

Visa - Open to Visa Transfers (OPT, H1B Transfers)

Company Stage - Early Stage -- $5.7M Funding

Industry - Artificial Intelligence, Data Infrastructure, Machine Learning, AI Agents, Identity Data, Enterprise Software

About the Company

Our client is building a next-generation data infrastructure platform that uses autonomous AI agents to collect, process, and continuously update large-scale identity and business data across the open web.

The platform is building a living identity graph spanning billions of individuals and hundreds of millions of businesses, providing contextual data infrastructure for next-generation AI applications.

The company is experiencing rapid growth with strong revenue momentum and is backed by leading venture investors. The team is intentionally small, giving engineers significant ownership over both customer-facing products and core infrastructure.

The organization operates at the intersection of AI agents, data infrastructure, distributed systems, and identity intelligence.

As a Software Engineer, AI & Data Systems, you'll work across backend engineering, high-volume data pipelines, AI agents, infrastructure, and customer-facing product surfaces.

This is an opportunity to join a highly autonomous engineering team where you'll take ambiguous customer problems, make architecture decisions, ship production software, and own systems end-to-end.

What You'll Do

• Build and ship customer-facing products across backend, data, infrastructure, and frontend surfaces
• Build core platform capabilities supporting large-scale identity and data systems
• Design and operate high-volume data pipelines processing massive amounts of information
• Build scalable backend services and APIs supporting customer-facing products
• Develop AI agents, agent harnesses, and developer tooling
• Build reliable systems for operating AI agents at very large scale
• Design distributed systems capable of handling high-volume data workloads
• Build and maintain data models and processing workflows
• Develop infrastructure supporting large-scale data collection and processing
• Work with LLMs and modern AI frameworks to build AI-native systems
• Improve the reliability, observability, security, and scalability of production systems
• Make architecture decisions and clearly communicate technical tradeoffs
• Iterate system designs as assumptions, requirements, and customer needs change
• Own software systems from initial concept through deployment and production operations
• Work directly with founders to shape product and technical direction
• Work directly with customers to understand ambiguous problems and translate them into product decisions
• Turn vague customer requirements into clear technical solutions and shipped software
• Collaborate across product, infrastructure, data, and engineering functions
• Use modern AI development tools aggressively while maintaining strong engineering judgment
• Debug and operate production systems independently
• Contribute to engineering standards, architecture, and technical strategy
• Operate with high ownership in a small, fast-moving startup environment

Ideal Candidate Background

• 1--6 years of professional experience in backend engineering, data engineering, product engineering, or AI systems
• Experience building and operating production systems end-to-end
• Experience owning systems from concept through deployment and ongoing operations
• Experience working in high-growth, talent-dense early-stage startup environments
• Experience at Seed--Series B startups preferred
• Experience building high-volume data pipelines
• Experience building AI agents, data systems, or identity/matching systems at scale
• Experience building customer-facing products and infrastructure
• Experience working with distributed systems and large-scale data
• Experience operating production systems with strong reliability and observability
• Strong ownership mentality with demonstrated independent execution
• Comfortable turning ambiguous problems into clear technical decisions
• Comfortable working directly with founders and customers
• Strong product engineering mindset
• Comfortable operating in a highly autonomous startup environment

Technical Requirements

• Strong backend engineering fundamentals
• Strong Python engineering experience
• Experience building APIs and backend services
• Experience designing and working with data models
• Experience with distributed systems
• Experience building and operating high-volume data pipelines
• Experience with cloud infrastructure
• Experience building production AI systems
• Experience working with LLMs
• Experience with AI agents or agent frameworks
• Experience building agent harnesses or AI developer tools preferred
• Experience with large-scale data processing
• Experience designing reliable production systems
• Strong understanding of scalability, reliability, and observability
• Experience with production debugging and system operations
• Strong software architecture and systems thinking
• Strong computer science and software engineering fundamentals
• Ability to reason about system tradeoffs and architecture decisions

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related technical field preferred
• CS degree from a strong/top technical university preferred
• Strong computer science, distributed systems, and software engineering fundamentals
• Equivalent practical engineering experience may be considered

Soft Skills

• Exceptional technical ownership
• Strong product judgment
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability
• Deep technical curiosity
• Comfortable working with ambiguity
• Strong communication skills
• Comfortable working directly with founders
• Comfortable working directly with customers
• High execution velocity
• Strong attention to system reliability and engineering quality
• Bias toward experimentation and continuous improvement
• Strong ability to reason from first principles
• Strong decision-making ability with incomplete information
• Low-ego collaborative mentality
• Strong builder mentality
• Comfortable operating independently
• Comfortable using modern AI tools to accelerate development
• Strong engineering judgment despite aggressive AI-assisted development
• Comfortable working in a small, high-performing startup team
• Willingness to work five days per week in San Francisco

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $200,000 -- $280,000
• Competitive Equity Package
• Opportunity to build AI-native data infrastructure at massive scale
• Significant ownership over customer-facing products and core platform systems
• Opportunity to work directly with founders
• Exposure to large-scale AI agents and autonomous data collection
• Opportunity to build high-volume data pipelines and distributed systems
• Opportunity to build on identity and matching systems at massive scale
• High-growth early-stage startup environment
• Opportunity to influence architecture and technical direction
• High level of autonomy and ownership
• Opportunity to work across backend, AI, data, infrastructure, and product engineering

Why Join

This is an opportunity to join a highly ambitious AI and data infrastructure company building systems that operate at massive scale across the open web.

You’ll work on the intersection of autonomous AI agents, distributed systems, large-scale data pipelines, and customer-facing products while helping build a continuously evolving identity data platform.

As part of a tiny engineering team, you’ll have significant ownership over architecture, product decisions, and production systems. You’ll work directly with founders and customers and have the opportunity to see your work move from an ambiguous problem to a shipped product quickly.

If you enjoy backend engineering, AI agents, distributed systems, large-scale data, and high-ownership startup environments, this role offers exceptional technical depth, autonomy, and impact.