Senior Software Engineer

Culturello Inc

10d • Remote

About The Position

As a Senior Software Engineer at Culturello, you’ll help shape a production platform used by millions while influencing how we evolve our systems in an increasingly AI-driven world. You’ll contribute through hands-on development, architectural decision-making, code review, and collaboration across engineering, product, and design. We value engineers who bring strong judgment, curiosity, and a sense of ownership — not just people who can write code. We are actively evolving our platform — continuing the long-standing work of modernizing our stack, improving developer experience, and increasing system reliability — while also responsibly incorporating applied AI, including LLM-powered workflows and intelligent automation, into a mature, mission-critical system.

Requirements

• Strong experience building backend systems with PHP and Laravel (or equivalent frameworks).
• Deep experience operating production MySQL databases at scale.
• Experience applying AI technologies in production systems or a demonstrated ability to learn and deploy new technologies quickly and responsibly.
• Hands-on exposure to modern AI concepts such as LLMs, embeddings, vector databases, RAG, or AI agents — you may not be an expert in all of them, but you’ve worked with or meaningfully explored some and understand how they are applied in real systems.
• Experience working with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred).
• Comfort working in CI/CD-driven environments.
• Strong communication skills in written and remote-first settings.
• Ability to break down complex systems into manageable, well-designed components.
• A collaborative mindset and willingness to both give and receive feedback.
• Experience working effectively on distributed or remote teams.
• Leading or significantly contributing to a system built by multiple engineers or teams.
• Owning a software project from early design through production and long-term maintenance.
• Modernizing or replacing a legacy system.
• Building authenticated, RESTful API-driven platforms.
• Deploying and operating load-balanced, multi-server environments.
• Introducing or owning backend technologies like Elasticsearch, Redis, RabbitMQ, or similar.
• Diagnosing and optimizing performance issues in demanding systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain advanced backend features that support scale, reliability, and excellent user experiences.
• Architect and evolve APIs and services with an emphasis on performance, clarity, and long-term maintainability.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of AI-powered features using techniques such as LLMs, RAG, embeddings, vector databases, and agent-based workflows.
• Use modern AI coding tools to accelerate development while maintaining high standards for correctness, security, and maintainability.
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across application code, databases, and infrastructure.
• Help ensure our systems meet high standards for data integrity, privacy, and security.
• Work closely with frontend engineers, product managers, and designers to deliver cohesive solutions.
• Mentor other engineers, participate in technical decision-making, and contribute to a culture of learning and continuous improvement.
• Use tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, or similar to improve productivity and explore solutions.
• Critically review and take ownership of AI-generated code.
• Help evolve workflows that integrate AI into design, implementation, debugging, and testing.
• Stay open to new development paradigms as tools and practices continue to evolve.

Benefits

• Multiple health benefit plans
• Company-funded FSA
• MacBook Pro, monitors, and necessary equipment
• Paid subscriptions and learning resources (Cursor, PhpStorm, Laracasts, books, and more)
• Generous paid time off
• Flexible schedules
• Healthy work-life balance

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed