Staff Backend Engineer

About Artisan

At Artisan, we’re building real AI employees - not copilots, not assistants, but autonomous teammates.

Our first, Ava, is an AI BDR. She finds and researches leads, writes emails in customers’ tone of voice, runs outbound sequences, self-optimizes, and manages email deliverability infrastructure. She learns, adapts, and improves over time - just like a human would.

Human team members use Artisan as their primary working platform, replacing a sprawling stack of sales tools, and have Artisans working alongside them.

We went through Y Combinator (W24) and have raised $35M+ from top investors. We’re at $7M+ ARR, with hundreds of customers including Remote, Quora, and SumUp. We’re currently working on Ava 2.0, pushing the boundaries of what an AI employee can do. And we're hiring.

Your Mission

This isn’t a maintenance gig. You’ll design, build, and scale the backend that powers AI employees. Expect to :

Build resilient, scalable services : Architect and implement backend systems and APIs that handle high-throughput AI requests with precision.

Own end-to-end delivery : From design to deployment, you’ll shepherd features into production rapidly, with quality and ownership.

Work cross-functionally : Partner with product, design, and AI teams to ensure backend decisions serve real user workflows.

Use AI as a coworker : Directly collaborate with AI coding agents like Claude Code, leveraging them to boost your productivity and quality.

Maintain engineering rigor : Champion testing, observability, deployment pipelines, and reliability best practices from day one.

Drive long-term scalability : Iteratively improve architecture, manage technical debt, and optimize for scale as we grow.

What You Bring

6+ years of backend engineering experience in high-growth environments, preferably early-stage or Series B.

Strong experience building scalable, data-intensive services with modern APIs and robust infrastructure.

Proficiency with cloud-native tools - containers, orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes), monitoring, CI / CD.

Deep understanding of distributed systems, APIs, reliability, performance, and database systems (SQL + NoSQL).

Experience with modern stacks - TypeScript / Node preferred, but equivalent backend stacks are welcome.

Demonstrated track record of ownership - leading parts of systems independently and shipping with impact.

Excellent communication, clarity in articulating architecture to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

What Makes This Role Stand Out

End-to-end ownership : You’re not just doing the “ticket”; you own feature delivery. Build systems that support intelligent, autonomous AI teammates.

Scalable, reliable systems : Backend must handle growth and complexity. High-throughput pipelines serving AI agents across many customers.

Hands-on infrastructure work : Jump in on deployment, monitoring, tuning. You're shaping the platform that automates itself (AI agents included).

Collaborative, multidisciplinary environment : Work closely with product, design, ops. Work alongside AI engineers and product partners to define what AI employees can do.

Balance innovation and technical debt : Iterate quickly while maintaining system health. Ship fast but sustainably - your engine powers AI teammates in production.

Why Artisan is the Next Career-Defining Move

You’ll be building the infrastructure that powers AI employees - an entirely new product category.

Real equity upside and compensation aligned with high expectations and high impact.

High-velocity environment : release often, learn fast, iterate week over week.

Mission-driven : reshape how businesses scale by putting AI on the front lines.

Details

Role : Engineering

Eng type : Backend

Job type : Full-time

Experience : 6+ years

Location : San Francisco or NYC (in-person)

Remote : No

US visas : Will sponsor

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