Founding Backend Engineer

We’re looking for a seasoned backend engineer to own key data, search, AI, and core backend infrastructure projects as we rapidly evolve Tako’s capabilities. In making the world’s knowledge available, composable, and shareable to AI, we are tackling several difficult technical and product problems with a small team. We are looking for builders that are passionate about AI, pace setters that ship with high velocity, and owners who demonstrate unusually high (some might say obsessive) levels of craft + impact. We’re not yet ready to mentor entry-level engineers, so we’re looking for mid-career and more senior engineers. We’re happy to be proven wrong about seniority should you be a badass.

What You Will Do:

• Own key backend + data infrastructure projects for indexing and serving the world’s knowledge
• Build AI + search infrastructure that delivers high accuracy, flexibility, and low latency
• Collaborate with frontend engineers and the rest of the engineering team to build high quality features that delight customers
• Interact with customers directly on the products you build + own
• Contribute directly to the company’s technical, product, and business strategy

What You Will Bring to the Team:

• At least 3 years of relevant engineering experience at tech and product-driven companies
• A desire to build across multiple domains (core-product, search, data-infra)
• A mastery of python (and at least a familiarity with frameworks like django)
• Experience with the modern AI development stack

What Gives You an Edge:

• Experience building production search or AI systems that serve millions of users
• Early-stage startup experience or founding experience
• Side projects, papers, etc. that demonstrate a genuine interest and passion for AI + search
• Trying our product for 10+ minutes and providing substantive feedback
• A sense of humor

Tako is an equal opportunity employer and employment decisions are made purely on a basis of job-related criteria without regards to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. For US Based Candidates we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.