Senior Backend Engineer

About Us At You.com, we are building the AI Search Infrastructure that powers modern AI systems. Our goal is to create the trusted knowledge layer that agents, applications, and enterprises rely on to retrieve real-time, accurate, and citation-backed information. Our platform combines proprietary vertical indexes with LLM-optimized retrieval systems to power AI agents, applications, and enterprise workflows. We are solving hard problems across search, large language models, and large-scale infrastructure to make AI systems more reliable, transparent, and useful. Our team includes engineers, researchers, product builders, and operators who care about solving meaningful problems and delivering real-world impact. Whether you are improving core infrastructure, shaping product experiences, or helping bring new AI capabilities to market, your work will help define how modern AI finds and uses knowledge. About the Role We're looking for a strong, generalist backend engineer to help build the platform behind our AI search products and infrastructure that already supports millions of queries a day. The role spans a lot of ground: scalable systems, the APIs and SDKs developers build on top of, and the billing and account infrastructure our enterprise customers need to run their business on our platform. This is a remote position open to candidates based anywhere in the United States. We give preference to candidates in San Francisco Bay Area or New York, where we have offices, but we're happy to consider strong remote candidates elsewhere in the US. Responsibilities Design, build, and maintain backend systems that support web-scale, AI-driven search products Shape our public API and SDKs into tools developers can rely on and enjoy building with Build the billing, account, permissions, and provisioning systems that support our enterprise customers Maintain performant production databases (SQL and NoSQL) and analytics stores at scale Apply observability practices suited to large-scale, fast-changing AI workloads Participate in an on-call rotation and help build monitoring that catches issues early Refactor and improve existing systems, and help shape team-wide best practices Qualifications A strong generalist engineer, comfortable owning the full lifecycle from design to deploy Strong instincts for distributed systems, data modeling, and API design, with good judgment about when to prioritize speed versus long-term scalability A track record of shipping and operating mission-critical services that hold up under real-world, high-volume traffic Primarily backend-focused (Python or similar), comfortable working across the stack when needed Familiar with Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and debugging system-level issues Experience with at least one of: billing/payments systems, B2B SaaS tooling, enterprise software, or LLM/AI model integrations and products Strong product instincts and a builder's mindset — motivated by solving the underlying customer problem, not just closing out a ticket Our salary bands are structured based on a combination of geographic tiers and internal leveling. Compensation is determined by multiple factors assessed during the interview process, with the final offer reflecting these considerations. Salary Band $200,000 — $250,000 USD Company Perks: Hubs in San Francisco and New York City offering regular in-person gatherings and co-working sessions Flexible PTO with U.S. holidays observed and a week shutdown in December to rest and recharge* A competitive health insurance plan covers 100% of the policyholder and 75% for dependents* 12 weeks of paid parental leave in the US* 401k program, 3% match - vested immediately!* $500 work-from-home stipend to be used up to a year of your start date* $600 technology stipend to support a portion of our hybrid/remote team's cell phone and internet expenses* $1,200 per year Health & Wellness Allowance to support your personal goals* The chance to collaborate with a team at the forefront of AI research *Certain perks and benefits are limited to full-time employees only You.com participates in E-Verify. We will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. (English/Spanish: E-Verify Participation / Right to Work ) We are also an inclusive, equitable, and accessible workplace. Please let us know if you require accommodation for any portion of the recruitment and hiring process. Beware of Recruiting Scams: You.com will only contact you through official @ You.com  email addresses and will never ask for payment or sensitive personal information during the hiring process. Use of AI Tools During Our Hiring Process: At You.com, we're thoughtful about how we use AI throughout our business — including our hiring process. During certain stages