Member of Technical Staff, Infra

Embedding Vc

Mountain View, CA

Hybrid

Who this role is best for

Geared toward senior backend engineers comfortable with end-to-end product development and technical leadership, working in a global tech environment with a focus on AI infrastructure and scalability.

Best fit for

Senior backend engineers with a history of leading scalable infrastructure for AI platforms.
— “own the scalability and reliability of the services that power our AI-native product features”
Candidates who can balance deep backend technical expertise with product-focused mindset and cross-team collaboration.
— “you'll own the scalability and reliability of the services... and partner closely with Product and AI/ML teams”
Individuals experienced in modern AI development tools and capable of full-stack contributions when needed.
— “Fluent with modern AI development tools... as part of your daily workflow”

Things to consider

This role demands a strong ability to make complex trade-offs legible to leadership and engineers.
— “Excellent communication skills—able to make complex tradeoffs legible to both engineers and leadership”
Candidates must be able to debug and resolve production issues with high ownership and pragmatism.
— “Debug and resolve production issues”

How to stand out

Highlight past experience in defining long-term backend architecture strategies for organizations.
— “Define and drive the long-term technical strategy for backend architecture across the organization”
Emphasize your ability to work across the full stack, including frontend frameworks like React.
— “Capable in a modern frontend framework (React/TypeScript) and able to work the full path from UI to backend when needed”
Showcase your track record of leading high-stakes technical design decisions and reviews.
— “lead the highest-stakes technical decisions and design reviews”
Demonstrate experience with AI/LLM-powered features and agent designs in your technical projects.
— “Experience building or integrating AI/LLM-powered features and agent designs”
Position yourself as someone who prioritizes customer outcomes and simplifies unnecessary complexity.
— “you are a product-minded engineer that cares as much about whether a feature solves the customer and users' problems”

Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Senior

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

own architecture of shared backend systems
define long-term technical strategy
design and ship backend services
establish engineering standards

Typical background

3+ years of professional backend software engineering experience

Skills & requirements

Required

Backend Software EngineeringAPI DesignData ModelingDistributed SystemsDatabasesProduct-mindedCommunication SkillsAi/llm Integration

Preferred

Startup ExperienceConsumer-facing Product Experience

Stack & domain

API DesignData ModelingDistributed SystemsDatabasesAI Development ToolsCommunicationLeadershipProblem-solvingAIBackendInfrastructure

About the role

Original posting from Embedding Vc via Ashby

About Abaka
Abaka AI is built on one mission: to be the world's most trusted data partner for AI companies. More than 1,000 industry leaders across Generative AI, Embodied AI, and Automotive AI rely on us to power their data pipelines. With our headquarters in Silicon Valley—and teams in Paris, Singapore, and Tokyo—we support global partners with fast, reliable, and scalable data solutions.
Our offerings include a diverse catalog of off-the-shelf datasets (image, video, multimodal, reasoning, 3D, and beyond) as well as comprehensive data collection and annotation services. Whether teams need raw data, curated datasets, or full-cycle data engineering, Abaka AI provides the foundation for building high-performance AI systems.
About the Role
As a Member of Technical Staff, Infra, you'll own the scalability and reliability of the services that power our AI-native product features and platform applications, spanning our cloud infrastructure, APIs, and data models that need to hold up under real production load. Backend and infra will be your primary focus, but you should still be a generalist enough to support end-to-end product development when needed.
Finally, you are a product-minded engineer that cares as much about whether a feature solves the customer and users' problems as you do about how it's built. Our Expert Talent platform is growing and scaling significantly in the 1-100 stage, so your impact will be immense and have a great deal of ownership from day one.
Responsibilities
Own the architecture of Abaka Expert Platform's shared backend systems—core services, data models, APIs, and cross-product infrastructure.
Define and drive the long-term technical strategy for backend architecture across the organization.
Design, build, and ship backend services and APIs that power AI-native product features at scale.
Design systems for scale, reliability, and evolvability, and lead the highest-stakes technical decisions and design reviews.
Establish backend engineering standards, patterns, and best practices adopted across all product teams.
Partner closely with Product and AI/ML teams to translate product and model requirements into production-grade systems.
Use modern AI development tools.
Improve performance, reliability, and observability of existing backend infrastructure.
Debug and resolve production issues.
Qualifications
3+ years of professional backend software engineering experience.
Strong expertise in backend: API design, data modeling, distributed systems, databases, and API design at scale.
A track record of owning architecture across multiple teams or an entire organization—and of decisions that aged well.
Capable in a modern frontend framework (React/TypeScript) and able to work the full path from UI to backend when needed.
Product-minded: you push back on unnecessary complexity and think about the customer outcome the system enables.
Excellent communication skills—able to make complex tradeoffs legible to both engineers and leadership.
Experience building or integrating AI/LLM-powered features and agent designs.
Fluent with modern AI development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar) as part of your daily workflow.
Comfortable with ambiguity and evolving priorities.
High ownership, pragmatism, and a bias toward shipping.
Preferred Qualifications
Startup or founder experience.
Experience building consumer-facing products at scale.
ML and Deep Learning knowledge and experience.
Compensation & Benefits
The base salary range for this position is $140,000 – $200,000 USD annually.
Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work at Abaka AI. This role is eligible for equity, as well as a comprehensive benefits package (health, dental, vision, PTO, flexible work schedule).

Source: Embedding Vc careers (Ashby)