Senior Software Engineer, Backend — AI Platform

NewsBreak•Mountain View, CA

3d•$118,000 - $212,000•Onsite

About The Position

NewsBreak is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Backend for their AI Platform team. This role involves modernizing live, high-traffic backend services that power NewsBreak's recommendation serving at scale. The position has a dual mandate: approximately half the time will be dedicated to advancing the architecture, and the other half will focus on shipping business impact. The team is currently upgrading its backend architecture to be AI-native, designing systems for safe operation by agents, tooling, and engineers. This is a hands-on engineering role with significant impact on a rapidly growing company that has achieved unicorn status.

Requirements

5+ years of backend experience
Strong Java skills
Experience with Kubernetes and CI/CD
Proven experience leading backend architecture design (service boundaries, data flows, high-QPS systems), ideally in large-scale recommendation, search, or ads systems.
Experience refactoring live production systems without causing downtime, utilizing methods like incremental migration, shadow verification, and safe rollout.
Rigorous approach to safety, designing for rollback and blast-radius control by default.

Nice To Haves

LLM-agent / AIOps exposure

Responsibilities

Lead the architecture upgrade of backend services, including untangling legacy boundaries, defining clean interfaces, and building first-class observability, incrementally on live, high-QPS systems.
Build the infrastructure that enables AI agents to operate safely in production.
Automate high-toil engineering workflows into reliable, self-serve systems.
Deliver backend capabilities for product initiatives such as experiments, growth systems, and serving changes to meet business needs.
Own the reliability of built systems, including observability, safe rollback, and knowledge sharing for the team.