Software Engineer - Backend

About the Role

As we work with our first design partners, Cogent is building a suite of backend services and integrations that will power our autonomous AI workers. We are looking for talented, ambitious Backend Senior and Staff Engineers who are excited to build in the Applied AI space.

What You’ll Do & Achieve

• Design and implement key backend, integration platform subsystems
• Understand business goals, product and technology strategies and customer requirements and implement supporting backend and integration platform subsystems to achieve them
• Adapt and evolve systems and plans to implement newly identified design partner and customer requirements
• Adapt and evolve systems to implement non-functional requirements (compliance, security, enterprise integration etc.)
• Laying down infrastructure foundations for growth and scalability
• Prepare Cogent for future headcount, customer, and data growth by working with a team to design and build an infrastructure that will scale and that achieves requirements in the areas of product capabilities, non-functional needs (reliability, security, disaster recovery, etc.).
• Help create a robust engineering culture at Cogent
• Onboard, support and uplevel future team members
• Participate in, provide feedback on, and iterate interview process as we scale the team up
• Actively contribute to Engineering Excellence, Operational Excellence and Recruiting initiatives

What You’ll Bring

• 5+ years of professional experience as a hands-on engineer and technical leader, overseeing and contributing to multiple backend systems and infrastructure projects
• Expertise in architecting, developing, and scaling backend systems, including both stateless and stateful architectures, to support high-performance, enterprise-level applications
• Proven experience with distributed systems, microservices, and serverless architectures, ensuring robustness, scalability, and fault tolerance
• Strong knowledge of backend programming languages such as Python, Go or similar, with a deep understanding of concurrency, memory management, and performance optimization
• Experience with API design and implementation (RESTful and/or gRPC), integrating with frontend systems, data platforms, and third-party services
• Solid experience with containerization, orchestration, and deployment technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines in multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure)

For California Based Applicants

The standard base salary range for this position is $100,000 - $300,000 annually. Compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and benefits.