Senior Backend Engineer

Your mission

You’ll play a key role in the success of deepset Cloud, our SaaS platform for Large Language Model (LLM) applications, empowering users to build their own LLM-powered features.

You'll join our cross-functional Product team, and work closely with Product, Design and other engineers.

You’ll contribute to building a cutting-edge AI platform capable of handling high data volumes, enabling users to deploy scalable AI applications that manage large-scale traffic efficiently.

Our mission

We are an AI startup that empowers developers to build applications that use natural language as the interface to data. Our open-source framework Haystack is used by thousands of developers to build LLM applications. Our LLM platform, deepset Cloud, enables enterprises worldwide to unlock the potential of large language models for their business cases. Come join our team and work with tech experts on real-world cases, in a fast-paced and high-impact environment, and shape the AI space together with us.

Life at deepset

At deepset you will find an environment with equal opportunities to grow, share ideas, build relationships, and succeed. We believe every employee is important and generates a direct impact on our team’s success.
We are certified by Flexa® Careers as a flexible employer, and our remote first culture is designed to provide work-life balance, autonomy, and flexibility.
Our daily meetings, the in person "re:base", and the social events allow us to work with great synergy. We would like to invite you to visit our life page to learn more about our culture.

Your impact

• Design and build an AI platform that empowers customers to solve real business challenges using state-of-the-art technology and customer-driven insights.
• Develop scalable infrastructure to support thousands of LLM applications processing millions of documents, with the ability to handle 100s of user requests per second on our SaaS platform powered by Haystack, our open-source library.
• Own features end-to-end, from ideation to production. This includes product and architecture design, CI/CD pipelines, implementation & testing, production monitoring, and incorporating customer feedback.
• Collaborate with our Open Source team to identify opportunities for improving Haystack and contribute enhancements to Haystack.
• Engage with infrastructure topics and collaborate with the infrastructure team for support and debugging assistance.
• Take on "firefighter" duties, addressing urgent issues with direct customer exposure alongside the Solutions Engineering team. Maintain and enhance debugging processes to ensure system reliability.
• Mentor other engineers and help them grow in their careers.

Your profile

• 5+ years of experience in backend development with proficiency in Python, ideally with experience in early-stage product development or working in growth/startup environments.
• Expertise in building and managing REST APIs, SQL databases, CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, and cloud services. Familiarity with Infrastructure-as-Code tools (e.g. Terraform or Crossplane) is a plus.
• A strong commitment to delivering well-tested, maintainable, and observable code.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to quickly troubleshoot and prioritize issues, especially in high-pressure situations or when working with code from other teams.
• Confidence in managing customer-facing challenges, with the ability to handle critical incidents effectively.
• Proactive and results-oriented, with the ability to contribute constructively and align with team decisions.

Perks

• Remote-first or hybrid
  You can choose to work from home or any other workspace that suits you. We offer home office setup (equipment and furniture), and we would be happy to sponsor a coworking spot.
• Grow
  Personal and professional growth is important to us. We have an annual learning and development budget, and also the opportunity to speak at conferences, internal knowledge sharing, and workshops.
• Connect
  We have a virtual office, a monthly social budget to reconnect virtually or in person, online walks and talks with colleagues from other teams, and a flexible travel policy that enables you to meet colleagues in person for special occasions.
• Re.base
  We meet in person on a quarterly basis, because we believe it’s important to get to know each other. We have fruitful discussions, we hold workshops, we brainstorm together, and we have leisure activities and fun.
• You are an owner
  All employees are enrolled in the employee stock option plan and own a part of the company.
• Personal time off
  If you want to recharge and travel the world - there are 30 days of paid vacation.
• Choose your tech
  The choice is yours among our pre-selected options, and we will provide what you need.
• Pension fund and Health Insurance fitting with your main working location
  All full-time employees are eligible for the pension plan according to the legal guidelines in their location. We also offer health, dental, and vision for employees in the US, in compliance with the local market.
• Travel Insurance
  We want you to be secure during your travels. Therefore, we offer every employee additional travel insurance.
• Sports budget
  To boost your health and well-being, we offer a monthly allowance for your sports activity.
• Oliva - employee mental wellbeing benefit
  To boost your well-being, we offer a benefit that helps you to respond to pivotal moments at work and beyond.
• Dog-friendly
  Our main co-working partner Mindspace welcomes dogs, so you can also bring your best friend to the office and our HQ in Berlin also welcomes dogs
• Enhanced days off for Family Sick Leave
  We offer additional days in case your child gets sick.
• Additional days off
  We don't work on the 24th & the 31st of December.
• Flexible working hours
  You can adapt your work to your private life.

What colleagues say

“I got to see the challenge of identifying use cases for AI and building and evaluating an LLM-based application first hand in my previous role. As a result, deepset’s mission to empower teams to leverage this transformational technology deeply resonated with me.
AI is one of the biggest innovations in technology that we have seen since the Internet. Having a chance to work and learn from a company that is at the heart of the ecosystem and has been accumulating expertise in this space since 2018 was an opportunity that I had to jump on!
I am super excited to have joined this incredibly talented team!” (Eliza, Product Manager)

"Deepset enables me to work with extremely talented and like-minded people on the tech I’m passionate about. It is just outstanding to find such a well-organized and yet creativity-encouraging environment. Seeing everyone is dedicated to the bone to pushing this thrilling technology to its limits puts the cherry on top.Needless to say: I'm proud to be part of deepset!” (Thomas, Senior NLP Engineer)