Sr. Backend Engineer, AI Projects

Responsibilities

• Own platform initiatives end-to-end: scope, design, build, ship, and maintain
• Drive systems design for new integration infrastructure, including services, queues, data pipelines, async workflows
• Lead projects staffed with junior and mid-level engineers; make them measurably more productive through code review, design feedback, and the systems you build
• Identify and eliminate classes of problems rather than patching individual one off bugs
• Set technical direction in ambiguous problem spaces

Preferred

• Integrations experience: you've built against third-party APIs, dealt with auth flows, rate limits, and the operational reality of depending on external systems
• Browser automation experience (Selenium, CDP, Playwright): useful context for our integration surface
• Expertise in Python
• Experience working in Fintech or comparable regulatory environment

What will you do?

• Collaborate closely with IE and adjacent teams to ensure platform primitives meet real consumer needs
• What qualifications are necessary?
• 5+ years of backend engineering experience

Computer Science degree or comparable experience

• AI-forward thinking: you have set yourself apart from others in willingness to drive AI projects forward
• Strong systems design: your designs get adopted by peers; you can defend tradeoffs and anticipate failure modes
• Demonstrated autonomous project leadership: examples of owning ambiguous, multi-quarter projects from idea to business outcomes

Nice to haves

Browser fingerprinting / detection work

• Experience designing and operating services that handle concurrency, failure modes, and meaningful scale
• Experience with backend platform / infrastructure: services, queues, data pipelines, async processing

Track record of reducing oncall noise

At Pinwheel, total compensation is made up of salary + equity + benefits. We recruit motivated and high performing talent, and work to compensate people in line with the value they can bring to the organization in delivering outsized results. The talent market is competitive, and maintaining our ability to recruit and retain the best team possible is a top priority for Pinwheel. When creating an offer, we consider interview performance, candidate experience, external market competitiveness, and internal equity in thoughtfully assessing compensation. The expected cash salary range for this role is $160,000 - $200,000 base.

Why join Pinwheel?

Best time to join

Our company is small but well-funded, meaning you are joining at a time where you can impact and shape the company.

Be a cultural builder

You will have an active hand in molding the company culture and being a part of the entrepreneurial journey.

Build something revolutionary

Help build the products on the bleeding edge of financial services!

Benefits included

• Great compensation & equity packages
• Full medical, dental, and vision benefits
• Life & short-term disability insurance
• Flexible PTO policy that prioritizes recharge and balance
• Paid parental leave
• 401K for retirement planning
• Mentorship opportunities
• Free Citibike membership
• Pet friendly offices and Zoom spaces

Diversity & Inclusion at Pinwheel

At Pinwheel, we are committed to building an environment that is diverse and inclusive. We believe that having people across different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives enables us not only to build the best financial products, but to help us realize the best versions of ourselves. Pinwheel is an equal opportunity employer, and we aim to be an open and supportive place to work.