Senior AI Backend Engineer
Job details
- Pay
- $220,000 – $280,000 a year
- Work mode
- Hybrid
- Employment
- Full-time
- Level
- Senior
- Experience
- 4+ years
- Posted
- Oct 20, 2026
- Last confirmed open
- Oct 20, 2026
About this role
River City Consulting is recruiting on behalf of a client, a growth stage enterprise AI software company. This is a direct hire role with our client. River City Consulting is the recruiting partner, not the employer.
Location
San Francisco, CA, in office 4 days per week (Wednesdays flexible)
Base salary: $220,000 to $280,000
Equity: offered, separate from base
What you will do
Own critical backend infrastructure for AI agents running in enterprise environments
Define orchestration patterns, evaluation frameworks, and regression testing so model changes ship safely
Set technical direction for your subsystems and mentor earlier career engineers
Establish security patterns: least privilege access, tenant isolation, and auditability
What you need
4+ years designing and shipping production backend systems with architectural ownership
AI powered features shipped to production, with real opinions on orchestration, evals, and failure modes
Experience owning a technical roadmap, not only executing specs
Primarily backend (about 80%) with willingness to work across the stack
Ability to work in the San Francisco office 4 days per week (relocation support available)
Nice to have
A mix of large company and high velocity startup experience
Founder or founding engineer experience
Mentoring and technical writing
Work authorization: the client accepts H-1B transfer, O-1, and OPT.
Pay: $220,000.00 - $280,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Parental leave
- Vision insurance
People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply
Work Location: Hybrid remote in San Francisco, CA 94105