Principal Back-End Developer

As Lead Back-End Developer, you will work directly with the VP of R&D and the research team to turn their frameworks and algorithms into reliable production software. The role combines backend architecture, distributed systems, Kubernetes, AWS, and LLM-powered applications with broad technical responsibility and no people-management focus.

What you’ll do

• Design and build scalable backend services and distributed systems.
• Turn research frameworks and algorithms into reliable production software.
• Develop APIs and services that connect LLM inference, retrieval systems, and knowledge graphs.
• Design and operate batch and streaming data pipelines.
• Build, deploy, and troubleshoot Kubernetes-based systems in AWS.
• Work closely with the VP of R&D and AI researchers on practical implementation of their work.
• Contribute to the main architectural and technical decisions behind the platform.

What we’re looking for

• 7+ years of experience in backend or software engineering.
• Strong hands-on experience with Python.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and cloud-native environments.
• Practical experience architecting, building, deploying, and troubleshooting Kubernetes-based systems.
• Hands-on experience deploying software in AWS.
• Experience building and deploying LLM-powered systems or AI agents in production.
• The ability to take broad ownership of technical problems, beyond application development alone.
• Experience in a startup, product company, or another environment where engineers work with a high level of autonomy.
• Fluent English and the ability to explain complex technical decisions clearly.

Nice to have

• RAG, vector search, or vector databases.
• Knowledge graphs, RDF, or ontologies.
• Hybrid retrieval architectures.
• Model serving or LLM evaluation.
• Go or Scala.
• Experience building a product from 0 to 1.
• A Master’s degree in Computer Science.

Why join

• Work directly with an experienced AI research team and turn new research into production systems.
• Solve engineering problems across distributed systems, LLM agents, retrieval, and knowledge graphs.
• Have a direct influence on the backend architecture and technical direction of the platform.
• Take on meaningful technical responsibility while staying close to code and infrastructure.
• Work on problems that do not yet have standard or ready-made solutions.

Hiring process

• Introductory interview with Indigo.
• Interview with a company representative.
• Interview with the VP of R&D.
• Technical interview.
• A short take-home assignment, if needed.