Senior Backend Engineer (AI/Data Platform)

Jahnel Group’s mission is to provide the absolute best environment for software creators to pursue their passion by connecting them with great clients doing meaningful work. This is a full time position with one of our closest clients. 

Who We're Looking For

The Senior Backend Engineer (AI/Data Platform) will join a high-caliber engineering team building the foundation of an AI-powered procurement platform. This individual will take the lead in architecting scalable systems that integrate LLMs and manage complex data ingestion pipelines. You’ll work closely with the founding team to shape technical direction, contribute to core product development, and help define engineering culture at a fast-paced, early-stage startup.

This is a high-impact role for someone with deep backend experience, exposure to AI/LLM technologies, and a passion for building intelligent, data-driven systems.

Primary Responsibilities

• Backend System Architecture and Implementation: Designs and implements scalable systems for data ingestion, transformation, and AI workflows using Python, NestJS, and PostgreSQL.
• LLM Integration and Workflow Orchestration: Integrates LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) into production environments using frameworks like LangChain to enable intelligent sourcing decisions.
• API Development and Data Pipelines: Owns the development and maintenance of REST APIs, services, and background jobs while building robust ETL pipelines and analytics-ready data formats.
• Infrastructure Automation and Deployment: Implements infrastructure-as-code using Terraform and manages deployments via AWS (ECS, Lambda, S3, API Gateway).
• Performance Optimization and Reliability: Optimizes data models and queries, ensures system reliability, and leads initiatives to enhance observability, monitoring, and CI/CD practices.
• Team Collaboration and Mentorship: Works cross-functionally with product and AI teams to ship impactful features and provides mentorship to junior engineers, driving best practices.
• Architectural Decision Making: Makes critical technical decisions to ensure system scalability, performance, and extensibility as the platform evolves.
• Other duties and projects as assigned

Some Must-Haves

• 5+ years of backend or full-stack engineering experience, preferably in high-growth or startup environments.
• Strong proficiency in Python and Node.js (NestJS).
• Deep experience with PostgreSQL, including data modeling and query optimization.
• Hands-on integration of LLM APIs such as OpenAI or Anthropic into real-world applications.
• Familiarity with LangChain or similar LLM orchestration frameworks.
• Proven experience building scalable data pipelines and ETL systems.
• Infrastructure expertise with AWS services (ECS, Lambda, S3, API Gateway).
• Proficiency with Terraform and Docker.
• Solid understanding of CI/CD pipelines and testing frameworks.
• Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and ownership mindset.

Where We're Looking For It

• New York