Senior Backend Engineer

Were a team of machine learning engineers training taskspecific generative models for psychology. Our goal is to build an AI therapist to help people change their mind and their lives in the ways that they want to. We partner with organizations around the globe and power use cases including AIassisted crisis text response while securing bestinclass datasets to power our models.

Success to us means every human being in need of support having somewhere to go. Were a wellfunded seedstage startup backed by toptier tech investors involved in Huggingface ElevenLabs Replit Captions Shopify Plaid Notion Canva Twitch Airtable and others

Were building a powerful team by empowering our engineers with the autonomy flexibility and resources to do their best work. We dream big and iterate fast. If that sounds like home wed love to hear from you.

The Role

This is a chance to join a passionate team leveraging cuttingedge AI to improve mental health access globally. As a Senior Backend Engineer you will play a critical role in building the systems and services that make the Ash product possible. You will work closely with our software and ML teams to implement new features on the platform ranging from UX improvements to bespoke ML model integration and orchestration work. As a core member of a small but highly skilled team we expect you to act as an owner and to care passionately about keeping our systems scalable performant and secure.

Your day to day responsibilities will be varied one day collaborating on a new piece of functionality in the app the next day working closely with our ML team to improve the scalability of our model deployments. Once youre embedded in the team you will get the opportunity to lead projects of your own with goals to make our products better faster and more reliable.

Our tech stack uses Kotlin for core backend services Python for our ML work Dart/Flutter for our apps as well as Rust for low level media streaming. We use gRPC and GCP (Kubernetes Cloud Run) as our primary cloud provider. Youre not required to be an expert in all of these tools but we would like you to come with a learning mindset and to not be afraid of getting your hands dirty with whatever tool the job might require.

About You

• You have solid experience working with backend service development in a fast paced environment ideally using Kotlin or Java. Youve likely used a few other languages too in your work and can work full stack when needed.

• You have a good foundational understanding of big picture software development including scaling observability data security etc. Youve likely been involved in setting up CI deployments and hosting solutions from scratch at some point in your career.

• You are a self starter and a keen learner able to pick up new tools languages and concepts on the job. We dont need you to be an ML engineer but having an interest in AI helps!

• You are a team player. You own your own work but care about outcomes above all. You enjoy solving hard problems especially when solving really them matters.

• You can ship fast. We work at lightning speed.

Requirements:

• 7 years of software development experience with emphasis on application backend services

• Experience working within the JVM ecosystem (Java Kotlin or Scala).

• Experience working in a fastpaced <100 person startup environment

• Based in London or New York were operating on a hybrid basis but love spending time together in person

Why you should take this job:

• You want to build things that matter. You love seeing your creations come to life and get used whether thats a small prototype demonstrator or foundations behind the scenes.

• You want first hand experience of AI and Machine Learning in practice. Youll be part of a team that pushes the frontiers of how modern AI can be employed to make a difference.

• You want direct exposure and mentoring from a founding team with a successful exit and track record (Neil scaled Casper through IPO)

• You care about our mission and are willing to do what it takes to make it happen

Why you shouldnt take this job:

• You would rather be told exactly what to do than to act as an owner

• You see yourself as fully formed and would rather not have to learn new things on the job

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation 90th percentile)

• Hybrid environment highly collaborative fastpaced culture

• Work with a crazy passionate team that cares deeply about the impact of our work on mental health especially in a postAGI world

Required Experience:

Senior IC