Senior Backend Engineer

About Instrumentl: Instrumentl is a profitable, hyper-growth, YC-backed SaaS pioneer building the definitive operating system for grant-funded organizations worldwide. Trusted by more than 5,500 premium nonprofits—ranging from local community foundations to massive institutional networks like the San Diego Zoo and the University of Alaska—our platform has collectively optimized and moved over $1 billion through its discovery channels. Growing more than 40% year over year with world-class product-market fit (Ellis PMF 60+), Instrumentl simplifies institutional fundraising by matching advanced data pipelines with automated discovery and tracking mechanics.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly autonomous, systems-fluent, and AI-proficient Senior Backend Engineer to claim absolute technical ownership over our core AI feature ecosystem under a permanent, full-time remote layout open across the United States and Canada. In this high-leverage software seat, you will sit on a small, fast-moving engineering squad responsible for turning abstract intelligence prototypes into resilient, production-ready backend services that power grant discovery, document analysis, and application drafting pipelines. Shifting completely away from routine non-regulated administrative transcription filing, simple front-end template styling, or generic copy layout adjustments, you will operate an active Large Language Model (LLM) orchestration, multi-step agentic tool-calling, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) evaluation laboratory. This position requires a software engineering authority with 7+ years of history who designs platform code fluidly natively using Backend and systems primitives, engineers highly performant Python services (FastAPI, Celery), handles structured relational schema models, and implements ironclad validation guardrails to optimize latency and cost budgets.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Feature System Governance: Design, deploy, and maintain robust, high-performance backend systems and server infrastructures to scale intelligent user applications natively utilizing Backend code structures.
• Agentic Toolchain Engineering: Build and optimize multi-step LLM agents featuring task planning, contextual tool calling, fallback strategies, and function routing layers for automated research assistance.
• RAG Pipeline Instrumentation: Architect and tune production-grade Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) structures, overseeing document ingestion, text chunking, embedding generation, vector/keyword hybrid search, and cross-encoder re-ranking.
• Production Telemetry & Observability: Implement comprehensive application monitoring systems, constructing alerts, tracking performance SLAs, and analyzing distributed traces to eliminate runtime latency drift.
• Data Engineering Fundamentals: Author and tune relational data models, manage complex SQL data layers, and build data validation pipelines that power automated model evaluations.
• Rigorous Testing & Experimentation: Run structured data experiments (including A/B tests and canary distributions) to validate feature stability, cost effectiveness, and prompt safety parameters.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner directly with embedded Product, Design, and GTM growth cells to scope product capabilities, optimize user experience paths, and map commercial outcomes.
• Engineering Standards Acceleration: Review peer pull requests, author technical documents, and maintain clear codebases to continuously elevate architectural practices across the squad.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• A minimum of 7+ years of proven, successful professional history operating inside a Senior Backend Engineer, Systems Developer, Technical Software Architect, or closely matching distributed applications capacity.
• Expert Python Backend Command: Master-level production experience building and scaling resilient microservices natively within the Python environment (utilizing frameworks like FastAPI, Celery, or equivalent).
• Demonstrated history shipping actual LLM features into live production environments, with hands-on command over function calling, multi-step agentic workflows, and model safety parameters.
• Strong relational database fundamentals, encompassing advanced proficiency writing SQL statements, schema optimization, and analytical data pipeline management.
• Highly adaptive operator who thrives within a fast-paced, scrappy startup environment, possessing a heavy bias for action, speed, quality, and structural simplicity.
• Location Context: Position operates under remote guidelines open exclusively to qualified backend systems engineers residing permanently within the United States or Canada.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Practical familiarity or experience working with full-stack platforms leveraging TypeScript, Node.js, or Ruby on Rails.
• Grounded command over cloud computing environments and packaging tools, including AWS or GCP, Docker containers, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience designing model evaluation suites using automated or human-in-the-loop testing frameworks (such as Ragas, DeepEval, or OpenAI Evals).
• Prior exposure utilizing open-source orchestration engines like LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, or custom semantic kernels.

What We Offer

• Top-Tier North American Technical Compensation: A highly competitive annual target salary structure of $175,000 - $220,000 USD for US-based engineers (plus equity options), with localized equity-matched calibrations provided systematically for Canadian provinces.
• 100% remote workspace infrastructure freedom from your home office setup based anywhere across the US or Canada.
• Direct High-Scale Social Impact: Unique professional growth milestones achieved by directing the flagship AI operating models that help thousands of world-changing nonprofits maximize their global funding paths.
• Comprehensive health preservation provisions, providing 100% covered Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance for employees (50% for dependents) alongside parental leave features.
• Access to corporate 401(k) structures, home office allowances, modern hardware gear stipends, and inspiring bi-annual company-wide retreats.