Lead Back End Developer

Senior Backend Lead Developer | AI Sales Platform | Early-Stage Startup

About the Opportunity:

The startup is an early-stage, high-potential startup building an AI-powered sales co-pilot with an existing product already in market. We're looking for a
Lead Backend Developer
who thrives in the zero-to-one stage — someone who has
proven experience building products from the ground up
and can architect, own, and scale backend systems independently.

This is not a role for someone looking to join an established team with clear processes. We need a
hands-on technical leader
with
5+ years of backend development experience
, including
significant experience in product development and system architecture from scratch
. You'll be responsible for designing and implementing core systems, making critical technical decisions, and setting the foundation for our engineering culture.

Beyond the Code:
As a lead developer in an early-stage startup, you'll need to
understand the business side
— not just write code. This means:

• Understanding customer needs and translating them into technical solutions
• Making trade-offs between speed, quality, and business priorities
• Communicating technical decisions in business terms
• Contributing to product strategy and roadmap discussions

What Makes This Role Unique:

• Early-stage impact:
  Shape the product and tech stack from day one
• Full ownership:
  Lead entire systems from architecture to deployment
• AI-first product:
  Work with cutting-edge LLM technology and agent orchestration
• Fast-paced environment:
  Build fast, iterate faster, and see immediate impact

If you're energized by the challenge of building a product from scratch, making high-impact technical decisions,
understanding the business context behind every feature
, and working in a lean, high-ownership environment — this is for you.

About the Startup:

AI-powered sales co-pilot
that equips revenue teams with
real-time intelligence and coaching
before, during, and after every customer interaction. It connects to the sales rep's
calendar, CRM, email, and conferencing tools
to automatically generate pre-call research briefs, provide live in-call coaching and objection handling, and produce actionable post-call summaries that sync directly back into the CRM.

Unlike post-mortem analytics platforms (e.g., Gong or Chorus), Othello acts
in the moment
— guiding reps during live conversations to improve close rates, shorten deal cycles, and elevate team-wide performance.

Mission:
To empower every salesperson with an intelligent assistant that thinks faster than they can — helping them show up prepared, stay sharp during calls, and close with confidence.

Vision:
To redefine sales enablement by merging human intuition with AI intelligence — creating a world where every sales conversation becomes a data-driven, high-performance opportunity.

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain backend systems using Python (FastAPI preferred)
• Architect clean, modular, and maintainable codebases following Clean Architecture and Domain-Driven Design principles
• Build and scale LLM-based services — prompt orchestration, RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, and intelligent API interactions
• Integrate with third-party APIs (e.g. Google, Slack, Salesforce, Supabase, Tavus, etc.) and manage auth, data flow, and observability
• Develop internal SDKs, background jobs, and async task pipelines (GCP Cloud Tasks, Redis, Celery)
• Write production-grade code with full test coverage and CI/CD readiness
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, frontend, and AI research teams to deliver high-impact features
• Lead or co-own full systems A→Z — from architecture and data modeling to deployment, monitoring, and iteration

Requirements:

Must Have:

• Proven mastery of Clean Code, SOLID principles, and Design Patterns
• 5+ years of professional backend experience
• Significant experience building products and systems from scratch
• Expert in Python (typing, async, testing, best practices)
• Experience designing and scaling RESTful APIs
• Skilled in MongoDB and/or PostgreSQL, schema design, and optimization
• Strong background in cloud infrastructure (GCP, Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, Cloud Tasks)
• Ability to build entire systems A–Z independently: architecture → implementation → deployment → monitoring
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, high-ownership environment — where accountability, self-direction, and bias-to-action are expected
• Business acumen
  — ability to understand customer needs and make technical decisions in business context

Nice to Have:

• Experience with LangChain, LLM agent orchestration, or multi-model inference flows
• Demonstrated experience with LLM systems (OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, custom orchestration)
• Familiar with RAG, embeddings, and vector stores (Weaviate, Pinecone, FAISS)

Culture & Mindset Fit

• Extreme ownership:
  Treats every system as their own — from uptime to UX
• Fast-paced execution:
  Thrives in environments where priorities evolve and velocity matters
• System builder mentality:
  Enjoys architecting complete pipelines, not just endpoints
• Craftsmanship:
  Writes clean, modular, and future-proof code
• Curiosity:
  Digs deep into new AI tools, APIs, and patterns
• Accountability:
  Proactive communication, end-to-end delivery, no babysitting needed
• Collaboration:
  Works closely with product, design, and AI teams — concise, respectful, outcome-oriented