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webAI · 14 hours ago

Backend/Systems Engineer

Austin, TX

Full-time

Onsite

Mid, Senior Level

3+ years exp

webAI is pioneering the future of artificial intelligence by establishing the first distributed AI infrastructure dedicated to personalized AI. In this role, you will design and build backend systems that support real-time, privacy-preserving product experiences, focusing on scalability and security.

Computer Software

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Design and build identity & session systems

Implement auth flows, device registration, key management integrations, token/session lifecycle, and account recovery patterns

Support multi-device identity and secure device-to-account bindings

Ship sync and encrypted state primitives

Build APIs and services that enable state sync across devices (event-based or state-based replication)

Partner with client engineers to support end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) state where the server coordinates without needing plaintext access

Implement lightweight cloud coordination

Create “coordination services,” not “big backend”: rendezvous, discovery, sequencing, fan-out, rate-limits, abuse controls, and reliability tooling

Prefer minimal durable state and clear boundaries; push logic to the edge/client when appropriate

Build real-time messaging, presence, and group chat capabilities

Implement reliable messaging pipelines (delivery semantics, retries, ordering strategies, idempotency)

Support presence and group membership (joins/leaves, device fan-out, read receipts/typing signals as needed)

Integrate with pub/sub or streaming systems, and tune for latency

Edge-aware systems thinking

Design for intermittent connectivity, offline-first behavior, device constraints, and high tail-latency networks

Make trade-offs explicit: consistency vs availability, ordering vs throughput, durability vs cost

Operate what you build

Add observability (metrics, tracing, structured logging), define SLOs, and participate in on-call/incident response (lightweight rotation)

Improve reliability: backpressure, load shedding, graceful degradation, and safe rollouts

Qualification

Distributed systemsBackend engineeringAPI designReal-time systemsCloud infrastructureContainerizationE2EE conceptsEdge computingSecurity mindsetSoft skills

Required

3–6 years of backend/systems engineering experience (or equivalent impact)

Strong fundamentals in distributed systems: consistency models, replication, idempotency, failure modes, and performance tuning

Experience building production services in at least one systems-friendly language (e.g., Go, Rust, Java, C++, Python) and comfort reading others

Familiarity with real-time systems: WebSockets, gRPC streaming, pub/sub, queues, or event-driven architectures

Experience designing APIs and data models with security and privacy in mind

Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure), containerization, and CI/CD

Preferred

Experience with E2EE concepts: key management, envelope encryption, forward secrecy (conceptual), or secure sync patterns

CRDTs / operational transforms / event sourcing / append-only logs for sync & collaboration

Experience with presence systems, chat/group membership, and “fan-out” patterns at scale

Edge computing or hybrid architectures (device + edge + cloud), and performance work on tail latency

Security mindset: threat modeling, abuse prevention, rate limits, and secure-by-default service design

Benefits

Competitive salary and performance-based incentives.

Comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits package.

401k Match (US-based only)

$200/mos Health and Wellness Stipend

$400/year Continuing Education Credit

$500/year Function Health subscription (US-based only)

Free parking, for in-office employees

Unlimited Approved PTO

Parental Leave for Eligible Employees

Supplemental Life Insurance

Company

webAI

webAI is designed to streamline the training, deployment, and execution of AI models by offering a unified execution layer for AI that seamlessly integrates cloud-based services and local devices.

Founded in 2020

Austin, Texas, US

51-200 employees

https://linktr.ee/thewebai

H1B Sponsorship

webAI has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2025 (9)

2024 (2)