About the Role

Youll be a core technical founder building the backend systems and infrastructure that power Known from the APIs that will serve millions of requests to the real-time communication pipelines that enable voice and text conversations to the data architecture that supports intelligent matching at scale. Youll design systems that are reliable performant and ready to grow with our user base.

Youll work closely with the founding team (AI/ML fullstack product and design) to architect backend services that handle complex workflows streaming LLM responses batch matching jobs payment processing and real-time chat while maintaining simplicity and developer velocity. This is a high-ownership role where youll make critical infrastructure decisions and set the technical foundation for Knowns growth.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable backend services in including RESTful APIs background job processing and data pipelines that support both real-time and batch workloads.

• Architect and optimize database systems using Postgres including schema design query optimization indexing strategies and data integrity at scale.

• Implement real-time communication infrastructure using WebSockets for chat and WebRTC for audio/video ensuring low latency and high reliability.

• Integrate and manage third-party services (OpenAI/Anthropic LLMs Google/Apple Pay reservation platforms SMS/push notifications CDNs) with robust error handling and monitoring.

• Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to build APIs and data pipelines that serve model predictions handle training data collection and support experimentation workflows.

• Own infrastructure deployment and observability build CI/CD pipelines implement monitoring and alerting optimize cloud costs and ensure system reliability as traffic scales.

• Design for performance and scale implement caching strategies optimize API response times and architect systems that can handle 10x growth without rewrites.

Requirements

• 46 years building production backend systems ideally in consumer products high-traffic applications or startups.

• Strong proficiency in TypeScript and with deep understanding of async patterns performance optimization and error handling.

• Expert-level knowledge of Postgres youre comfortable with complex queries transactions indexing connection pooling and performance tuning.

• Experience designing and scaling RESTful APIs with attention to rate limiting authentication caching and versioning.

• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS GCP) including compute storage databases and networking services.

• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code tools.

• Experience with WebSockets and WebRTC for real-time communication systems.

• Strong understanding of observability and monitoring logging metrics tracing and alerting best practices.

• You think about security data privacy and compliance as first-class concerns.

Example Projects

• Build a high-throughput API layer that serves personalized match recommendations user profiles and compatibility scores with sub-100ms response times.

• Design and implement a background job system for processing batch matching algorithms sending notifications and generating analytics reports.

• Create WebSocket infrastructure for real-time messaging with presence indicators typing notifications and streaming LLM-powered conversation suggestions.

• Architect WebRTC signaling and media server infrastructure to support voice/video chat between users and AI voice agents.

• Build payment and reservation integration workflows with idempotency guarantees webhook handling and comprehensive error recovery.

• Implement a robust caching layer (Redis) that reduces database load and improves API response times across the platform.

• Design database schemas and migration strategies that support rapid product iteration while maintaining data consistency and performance.

• Expand monitoring and observability infrastructure with distributed tracing performance profiling and automated alerting for system health.

Why This Role

This is a chance to be the infrastructure architect of a consumer AI product from day one to build backend systems that are elegant scalable and enable rapid product innovation. Youll have the autonomy to make foundational technical decisions and the responsibility to ensure Known can grow from thousands to millions of users without missing a beat.