Backend Software Engineer

5 hours ago

Palo Alto, CA, United States Recruiting from Scratch Full time
Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a specialized talent firm dedicated to helping companies build exceptional teams. We partner closely with our clients to deeply understand their needs, then connect them with top-tier candidates who are not only highly skilled but also the right fit for the company's culture and vision. Our mission is simple: place the best people in the right roles to drive long-term success for both clients and candidates.

https://www.recruitingfromscratch.com/

Role: Backend Software Engineer

Location: Palo Alto, CA (Hybrid - 1 day/week onsite)
Company Stage: Series A Venture-Backed Startup
Office Type: Hybrid
Salary: $180,000 - $260,000 base + equity
Company Description

Our client is a fast-growing, mission-driven startup focused on transforming workforce education through AI-powered personalization and accessibility. The company partners with major education providers and enterprises to make learning scalable, adaptive, and inclusive for millions of adult learners worldwide.

With over $1M in annual recurring revenue and strong year-over-year growth, they're backed by top-tier investors in the education and technology space. This is an opportunity to join a small, high-impact engineering team shaping the future of AI-enabled learning.
What You'll Do
  • Architect and implement scalable backend systems that power AI and recommendation engines.
  • Build and maintain data pipelines, APIs, and services used by educators and enterprise partners.
  • Optimize infrastructure to support low-latency AI interactions and data-intensive workloads.
  • Collaborate closely with full-stack, ML, and product teams to create personalized learning experiences at scale.
  • Contribute to engineering best practices, architecture decisions, and technical culture as an early hire.
Ideal Candidate Background
  • 3+ years of professional backend engineering experience, ideally in Python and FastAPI.
  • Strong experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL preferred).
  • Proven track record of owning complex projects end-to-end - from architecture through deployment.
  • Background in building and scaling products used by large user bases.
  • Excellent communication skills and ability to thrive in a fast-moving startup environment.
Preferred Qualifications
  • Exposure to or curiosity about AI/LLM integration (e.g., GPT, LLAMA, BERT) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
  • Experience in cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and DevOps practices.
  • Previous experience in high-growth startups or large-scale tech environments.
  • Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and open to working onsite in Palo Alto 1 day per week.
Compensation and Benefits
  • Competitive base salary: $180K - $260K, commensurate with experience.
  • Equity participation in a fast-growing venture-backed company.
  • Comprehensive health benefits and generous time-off policy.
  • Opportunity to join a small, world-class team of engineers and researchers from top institutions (Stanford, MIT, Microsoft Research).
  • Direct impact and ownership in building AI-first infrastructure from the ground up.

Join a team that's redefining how people learn and grow through technology - while working alongside passionate innovators who are changing the landscape of workforce education.

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