Staff Backend Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Staff Backend Engineer (AI): Building and optimizing high-load backend services for a consumer AI application platform with an accent on real-time conversational AI at scale. Focus on designing highly performant API-based model services, data ingestion for personalized AI experiences, and developing control & optimization services.

Location: Candidates must be based in the SF Bay Area or willing to relocate (working on-site in our South Bay office a few days a week).

Salary: $180,000–$280,000

Company

hirify.global is pioneering lifelike, interactive characters for games and entertainment, providing multimodal models and tools to build real-time conversational AI applications across various consumer sectors.

What you will do

• Establish significant scope for product needs in collaboration with PMs and leads.
• Operate with technical autonomy to suggest solutions and introduce new dependencies.
• Collaborate, execute, and deliver with a focus on speed and quality.
• Advocate for and realize system improvements.

Requirements

• Excellent programming skills in a statically typed backend language (Go, Kotlin, Java, or Rust preferred).
• Experience developing and deploying cloud-based services to hundreds of qps or more.
• Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL or MySQL).
• Hands-on experience with caching (Redis or Memcached), pubsub/queues, data pipelines (Flink, Beam), and Cloud storage.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively.
• Location: Must be based in the SF Bay Area or willing to relocate to the SF Bay Area.
• Work format: Hybrid, requiring on-site work a few days a week.

Nice to have

• Experience with analytics or timeseries databases (ClickHouse, Timescale, InfluxDB).
• Experience with OpenTelemetry.
• Experience with C++.

Culture & Benefits

• Opportunity to work on a new consumer AI application platform.
• Work alongside very capable peers in an IC-focused role.
• Collaborate with sibling ML teams.
• Fast-paced environment focusing on capturing opportunities in evolving AI.
• Competitive compensation package including equity and benefits.