Senior Backend Engineer (AI)

TL;DR

Senior Backend Engineer (AI): Architecting and scaling core services and infrastructure for electric aircraft systems with an accent on AI model integration and high-performance data pipelines. Focus on building robust microservices, managing cloud infrastructure, and ensuring system reliability in a safety-critical aerospace environment.

Location: Must be based in San Jose, California, United States

Salary: $145,000–$180,000

Company

hirify.global is an aerospace company developing all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to advance sustainable air mobility.

What you will do

• Design and maintain scalable backend systems, APIs, and data pipelines supporting AI-powered applications.
• Leverage infrastructure-as-code tools to manage backend environments.
• Collaborate with AI Research and Data Science teams to deploy and monitor ML models.
• Own the full development lifecycle from design to production maintenance.
• Monitor system performance and perform root cause analysis for production issues.
• Mentor junior team members and promote engineering best practices.

Requirements

• Must be authorized to work in the US (no visa sponsorship available).
• 5+ years of professional backend software engineering experience.
• Strong proficiency in Python and/or Rust.
• Solid understanding of microservices, distributed systems, and API design.
• Experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/OpenTofu) and relational databases.

Nice to have

• Experience with AI/ML ops and tooling.
• Background in high-throughput data pipelines or event-driven architectures (Kafka, NATS).
• Experience with Rust async runtimes and serialization.
• Interest in aerospace, robotics, or autonomous systems.

Culture & Benefits

• Commitment to an equitable and inclusive workplace.
• Pay-for-performance culture.
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge sustainable aerospace technology.