Senior AI Platform Engineer Contract

Nextdata
San Francisco, CA
On-siteCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Aimed at senior backend engineers comfortable with rapid implementation of AI agent workflows and data integrations in a short-term contract.

Best fit for

  • Senior engineers who thrive in short-term, high-impact implementation roles.
    — “Initial term: three to four months”
  • Backend developers with proven experience in AI agent frameworks.
    — “Practical experience building agentic AI applications using LangChain, LangGraph, or similar frameworks”
  • Candidates adept at quickly ramping up on existing codebases.
    — “Ability to become productive quickly in an unfamiliar codebase”

Things to consider

  • Role is contract-based with potential but no guaranteed extension.
    — “Initial three-month project focused on building and validating”
  • No customer-facing responsibilities despite senior title.
    — “No customer-facing responsibilities”

How to stand out

  • Demonstrate specific examples of rapid codebase assimilation in past roles.
    — “Quickly understand the existing codebase, requirements, and technical direction”
  • Highlight production-grade implementations of access controls and policy enforcement.
    — “Add access controls, policy enforcement, audit logging, tests, and observability”
  • Showcase projects where you balanced speed with production readiness.
    — “Good judgment on scope, trade-offs, and production readiness”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · MediumAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Senior

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

What success looks like

  • building backend services and APIs
  • integrating data sources
Typical background
backend systemsAI platforms

Skills & requirements

Required

Backend SystemsData PlatformsDistributed SystemsAPI DevelopmentAI Agents

Preferred

Data ProductsData MeshSemantic ModelsCatalogsGovernance Platforms

Stack & domain

Backend SystemsData PlatformsDistributed SystemsAgentic Ai ApplicationsLangchainLanggraphRagRetrievalSemantic SearchTool CallingMulti-step Agent WorkflowsPythonApi DevelopmentSQLDocumentsMetadata SystemsVector SearchMcpAccess ControlsPolicy EnforcementAudit LoggingTestsObservabilityData ProductsData MeshSemantic ModelsCatalogsGovernance PlatformsMcp ServersTool RegistriesMulti-step AgentsDatabricksSnowflakeBigQuerySparkDuckdbPostgreSQLGraph DatabasesVector DatabasesOAuthOIDCSAMLSsoRbacAbacScimPolicy EnginesRetrieval QualityTool AccuracyGroundednessFailure ModesQuick Ramp-upProblem-solvingAdaptabilityCollaborationCommunicationLeadershipStrategic ThinkingJudgmentScopeTrade-offsProduction ReadinessAIPlatformBackendDataIntegrationSecurityGovernance

About the role

Original posting from Nextdata via Ashby

NEXTDATA IS LOOKING FOR AN EXPERIENCED AI PLATFORM ENGINEER FOR AN INITIAL THREE-MONTH PROJECT FOCUSED ON BUILDING AND VALIDATING AN AI-ENABLED DATA PLATFORM CAPABILITY.

THIS IS A HANDS-ON IMPLEMENTATION ROLE. YOU WILL QUICKLY RAMP UP ON AN EXISTING PROJECT AND BUILD BACKEND SERVICES, AGENT TOOLS, APIS, AND DATA INTEGRATIONS. THE ROLE HAS NO CUSTOMER-FACING RESPONSIBILITIES AND LESS EMPHASIS ON ARCHITECTURE THAN A PRINCIPAL-LEVEL POSITION.

IF SUCCESSFUL, THE PROJECT MAY CONTINUE AND DEVELOP INTO A BROADER NEXTDATA PRODUCT.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

  • Quickly understand the existing codebase, requirements, and technical direction.
  • Build backend services, AI agents, tools, and APIs for governed data access.
  • Implement MCP-compatible endpoints or similar agent interfaces.
  • Integrate SQL, documents, APIs, metadata, semantic models, and vector search.
  • Build retrieval, tool selection, context construction, and grounded response flows.
  • Add access controls, policy enforcement, audit logging, tests, and observability.
  • Deliver a reliable, documented system within the three-month project scope.

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WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

  • Strong experience with backend systems, data platforms, or distributed systems.
  • Practical experience building agentic AI applications using LangChain, LangGraph, or similar frameworks.
  • Experience with RAG, retrieval, semantic search, tool calling, and multi-step agent workflows.
  • Strong Python and API development skills.
  • Experience with SQL, documents, metadata systems, and vector search.
  • Familiarity with MCP or similar agent interfaces.
  • Understanding of access control, policies, lineage, data quality, PII protection, and auditability.
  • Ability to become productive quickly in an unfamiliar codebase.
  • Good judgment on scope, trade-offs, and production readiness.

NICE TO HAVE

  • Experience with data products, data mesh, semantic models, catalogs, or governance platforms.
  • Experience with MCP servers, tool registries, or multi-step agents.
  • Experience with Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Spark, DuckDB, Postgres, graph databases, or vector databases.
  • Familiarity with OAuth, OIDC, SAML, SSO, RBAC, ABAC, SCIM, or policy engines.
  • Experience evaluating retrieval quality, tool accuracy, groundedness, and failure modes.

CONTRACT SCOPE

  • Initial term: three to four months.
  • Focus: hands-on implementation and delivery.
  • No customer-facing responsibilities.
  • Potential extension if the project is successful.

Source: Nextdata careers (Ashby)

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