Staff Backend Engineer - AI Infra

Daily Adventures and Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of highly scalable, reliable LLM infrastructure that interfaces with multiple providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, GCP)

• Architect and build unified abstractions and frameworks for the organization's AI platform needs including:

  • Provider API abstractions, authentication systems, and sophisticated usage policies

  • Advanced provider routing with circuit breakers, retries, and graceful fallbacks

  • Implement guardrails, content filters, and standardized prompt templating systems

  • Design comprehensive observability for latency, cost, and quality metrics across AI systems

• Drive critical technical decisions across engineering organization for AI infrastructure adoption

• Lead development of core AI platform services from architecture to production, including developing robust async worker patterns and task orchestration systems

• Define and implement CI/CD best practices: establish pre-commit standards, reduce test flakiness, optimize test execution, harden GitHub Actions, and implement preview environments

• Architect cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes deployments with focus on security, scalability and cost efficiency

• Establish SLOs/SLIs and implement monitoring systems with Sentry, alert policies, metrics, logs, and dashboards

• Collaborate with cross-functional leadership to drive platform adoption and de-risk major launches

• Mentor engineers on platform best practices and guide architectural decisions across teams

Competencies

• Strategic thinking with ability to influence and align engineering decisions across the organization

• Exceptional communication skills for collaborating with engineering leadership, product, and business stakeholders

• Self-motivated with demonstrated ability to lead complex, multi-team initiatives

• Excellent analytical skills to evaluate and solve complex technical challenges

• Strong technical leadership with proven track record of mentoring engineers

• Demonstrated experience establishing engineering best practices and systems thinking

• Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to high-quality deliverables

• Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive technical clarity in complex problem spaces

• Proficiency in leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity and engineering workflows

Skills & Relevant Experience

Required:

• 8+ years of experience in platform engineering, distributed systems, or AI infrastructure

• Proven track record of designing and implementing large-scale, production-grade systems

• Experience leading technical initiatives that span multiple teams and organizations

• Deep understanding of software architecture principles and design patterns

• Strong knowledge of cloud platforms, container orchestration, and microservices

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field

Preferred:

• Experience building production AI/ML infrastructure and platforms

• Expertise with Python, FastAPI, and modern async programming patterns

• Strong background in Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, and cloud-native architectures

• Experience with observability systems, performance optimization, and reliability engineering

• Knowledge of security best practices for AI systems and data handling

The listed Pay Range reflects base salary range, except for sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ('OTE') range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commission/sales bonus targets and annual base salary for the role. This pay range may be inclusive of several career levels at Apollo and will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of factors, including the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and location. Applicants interested in this role and who are not located in the US may request the annual salary range for their location during the interview process.

Additional benefits for this role may include equity; company bonus or sales commissions/bonuses; 401(k) plan; at least 10 paid holidays per year, flex PTO, and parental leave; employee assistance program and wellbeing benefits; global travel coverage; life/AD&D/STD/LTD insurance; FSA/HSA and medical, dental, and vision benefits.

Annual Pay Range

$166,000—$260,000 USD