Lead Backend Engineer (AI)

Location: Hybrid, based in Arlington, VA, US

Base salary: $160,000–$225,000 per year, plus eligible performance bonuses and stock options.

Company

hirify.global is an AI and optimization company building software for complex operational environments, combining real-time communications, computer vision, audio intelligence, natural language processing, navigation, geospatial data, optimization, and secure cloud infrastructure.

What you will do

• Architect and build production backend services in Go.
• Define microservice boundaries, APIs, event flows, data contracts, and engineering standards.
• Design real-time media infrastructure using WebRTC and LiveKit, plus Kafka-backed event-driven systems.
• Design secure data models, authentication, and role-based access control across distributed services.
• Lead architecture reviews, design discussions, code reviews, and engineer mentorship.
• Own backend production reliability, observability, incident response, and failure recovery across cloud and edge environments.

Requirements

• 7+ years of professional backend or distributed-systems engineering experience.
• Strong production experience with Go.
• Experience leading technical design and guiding other engineers.
• Deep understanding of microservices, concurrency, networking, and fault tolerance.
• Experience with relational databases, schema design, and data modeling.
• Experience designing authentication and authorization systems.
• Experience operating cloud-based systems on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Legally authorized to work in the United States.

Nice to have

• Experience with Apache Kafka and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with WebRTC, LiveKit, or real-time media systems.
• Experience building infrastructure for AI/ML, computer vision, or NLP.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD.
• Experience in defense, government, public safety, or high-security environments.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work environment with significant technical ownership and direct influence over product and architecture decisions.
• Health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Performance bonus opportunities and stock options.
• Collaboration with specialists in AI, computer vision, audio, navigation, optimization, and real-time infrastructure.
• Active U.S. government security clearance is not required, although candidates with current or prior clearance are encouraged to mention it; additional eligibility verification may apply for certain customers, contracts, or regulations.