Backend-Leaning Product Engineer

About the role

About the Role We're a small, high-ownership product team in the staffing and recruiting space, building real-world AI and automation products. As a Backend-Leaning Product Engineer , you'll own customer-facing features end-to-end — from design through shipping and iteration — with minimal process overhead and maximum autonomy. You'll work closely with founders and customers in a hybrid San Francisco setting, making meaningful product and engineering trade-offs every day. This is an ideal role for an early or founding engineer who thrives in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and has a track record of shipping real products — especially 0-to-1 or in messy, integration-heavy contexts. What You'll Do Own features end-to-end: from ideation and design through implementation, launch, and iteration. Make independent product and engineering decisions without heavy PM support. Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines. Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and third-party services. Design workflows and orchestration layers for AI/automation-driven products. Debug production issues quickly and exercise strong engineering judgment under pressure. Handle full-stack work when required, while maintaining a clear backend ownership focus. Collaborate directly with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders. What We're Looking For Required: Backend-focused software engineering experience — able to design, implement, and ship customer-facing backend features. Demonstrated ownership of the full lifecycle of customer-facing features: ideation, implementation, and feedback loops. Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills (product, design, data). Must be legally eligible to work in the US without employer sponsorship. Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; hybrid/in-office presence required. Nice to Have: Experience in early-stage startup or high-ambiguity environments. Systems integration experience with external APIs and third-party services. Applied AI experience: agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, LLM-enabled features. Python proficiency; modern web/backend stacks are also welcome — engineering quality matters more than a specific stack. Founder, co-founder, or founding engineer background. Not a good fit if you are: frontend-only, data-only or internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research/ML without shipping experience, or primarily motivated by corporate titles and structure. Location This role is on-site / hybrid in San Francisco, CA . Candidates must be based in SF or open to relocating. Visa sponsorship is not available. Compensation & Benefits Base salary: up to $275,000 depending on experience. Equity: meaningful equity stake commensurate with an early-stage hire.