---
title: 'Senior Backend Engineer, AI Orchestration at Kestra Technologies'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-backend-engineer-ai-orchestration-kestra-technologies-europe-rkmnje8xc3d0'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Senior Backend Engineer, AI Orchestration at Kestra Technologies

- **Company:** Kestra Technologies
- **Location:** Europe
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-06-26
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kestra/811d671f-3f51-4527-95c7-625fc2481fb4/application

**Skills:** Java, Micronaut, LangChain4j, Kafka, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, GCP, AWS, Azure, Vue.js, Bootstrap, Python, TypeScript, LangChain.js

> Design and build execution primitives for AI workflows within the Kestra engine, focusing on reliability and observability. The role involves developing plugins for LLM providers and agent frameworks, ensuring robust orchestration of AI steps, and maintaining production-grade Java systems.

## Job description

## About Kestra

At Kestra, we’re on a mission to make orchestration and automation simpler for everyone. Our open-source platform helps teams manage complex workflows with confidence, and we’re already making a big impact in businesses around the world. Now, we’re looking for a Full Stack Engineer to help us take things to the next level. In March 2026, we closed a $25M Series A led by RTP Global, with participation from Alven, ISAI, and Axeleo – backed by founders from Datadog, dbt Labs, and Hugging Face.

## About the role

Kestra orchestrates workflows across systems and domains. AI agents and LLM-driven workflows are a growing part of that, and this role is about making sure they can run reliably inside the orchestrator. This is not a wrapper around a model API, but a platform orchestrating how agent steps should be run, retried, branched, and kept observable inside the orchestrator. That work happens in the Kestra core, which is Java.

## What you would do

- Design and build the execution primitives for AI workflows in the Kestra engine
- Build and maintain the plugins that connect Kestra to LLM providers and agent frameworks
- Turn real agent use cases into reusable blueprints, together with the product team
- Keep AI executions observable and debuggable to the same standard as the rest of Kestra

## What we are looking for

- A strong Java background. You have built and maintained production Java systems, not used Java in passing.
- Hands-on experience with LangChain4j or a comparable Java agent framework
- A clear mental model of how agentic systems are actually run: tool calls, state, retries, failure modes
- Comfort working close to an orchestration engine, where correctness and reliability matter more than demos

Our Tech Stack

- Backend: Java, Micronaut
- Frontend: Vue.js, Bootstrap
- Datastore: Kafka, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, MySQL
- Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform
- Cloud: GCP, AWS, Azure
- Tools: GitHub for repo management, actions, and issues

We work with a variety of modern technologies, and you’ll get the opportunity to explore new tools and approaches as we grow.

## Perks & Benefits

- Work from anywhere: We’re a remote-first company, so you can work from wherever feels like home. Plus, you’ll have access to coworking spaces worldwide if you ever need a change of scenery.
- Health coverage: From medical support, dental, and vision, we've got you covered.
- Home office setup on us: We’ll provide all the equipment you need to work comfortably.

Our Hiring Process We aim to move quickly (2-3 weeks), but we can adjust the timeline if needed.

- Intro call with the hiring manager (30 min)
- Technical test (2 hour, homework done in async)
- Team chat with two of your future colleagues (30 min)
- Final discussion with one of our co-founders (30 min)

We’re here to make the process smooth and transparent for you.

Before you apply This is a Java-first role. The AI ecosystem is mostly Python and we know that. We can work with someone who has built AI systems in Python (or in TypeScript via LangChain.js) and has a solid Java background to grow from. We cannot work with someone who only knows the Python AI stack and does not want to write Java. We are also not looking for candidates whose AI experience is a single demo or a personal side project. We want people who have run AI in production, dealt with outages, and learned from the failures that come with it.

## About Kestra Technologies

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Kestra is the open-source declarative orchestration platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows, designed to unify automation across any language and infrastructure.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Paris, France
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Emmanuel Darras (CEO), Ludovic Dehon (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Workflow Orchestration, Data Infrastructure, Developer Tools, AI Operations
- **Target customers**: B2B – Data engineers, platform engineers, software engineers, and enterprise IT teams
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "Unify orchestration for all engineers. Build, run and govern all your workflows — data, AI, infrastructure, and business — Everything-as-Code, from the UI and with AI."

## Products & Services
- **Kestra Open Source**: A free, self-hosted orchestration engine (Apache 2.0 license) that runs on Docker or Kubernetes. Workflows are defined in declarative YAML, support any language (Python, Bash, Node.js, Go, containers), and connect to 1,600+ plugins.
- **Kestra Cloud**: A fully managed SaaS version of the platform, offering fast time-to-value with pay-as-you-go pricing.
- **Kestra Enterprise Edition**: Built for critical environments with SSO, RBAC, audit logs, multi-tenancy, isolated workers, SLA-backed support, and hybrid deployment (cloud, on-prem, air-gapped). Includes AI Copilot for natural-language workflow generation and agentic orchestration.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $36M across three rounds (Pre-Seed $3M, Seed $8M, Series A $25M)
- **Notable Investors**: RTP Global (led Series A), Alven (led Seed round), and a roster of prominent angel investors including Clément Delangue (CEO, Hugging Face), Nicolas Dessaigne (Founder, Algolia / YC Partner), Olivier Pomel (CEO, Datadog), Tristan Handy (CEO, dbt Labs), Michel Tricot (CEO, Airbyte), Pierre Burgy (CEO, Strapi), Bertrand Diard (Co-Founder, Talend), Stijn Christiaens (Co-Founder, Collibra), and Frédéric Plais (CEO, Platform.sh).
- **Growth Signals**: 10x year-over-year growth in adoption and workflow volume; 48.8% headcount growth YoY (46 employees as of mid-2025); 24 active job postings; team distributed across 10 countries.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unified orchestration**: Replaces multiple legacy tools (Airflow, Prefect, Dagster, CI/CD schedulers, cron) with a single platform for data, AI, and infrastructure workflows – reducing tooling cost by up to 90%.
- **Declarative YAML + UI**: Workflows are version-controlled YAML, but can also be built in a UI (no-code forms) – both stay in sync, enabling collaboration between developers and non-developers.
- **AI-native**: Built-in production AI Copilot generates/refines workflows from natural language, and AI Agents with memory and tools can dynamically adapt execution.
- **API-first / CI/CD native**: Fully programmable via API and Terraform, enabling Git-driven CI/CD for workflow deployment.
- **Enterprise governance**: Retries, timeouts, SLAs, RBAC, audit logs, SOC 2, and isolated task runners – built for production reliability.

## Strategic Focus
- **Agentic automation**: Deepening AI-native capabilities with context-aware agents that can loop, adapt, and make decisions mid-workflow.
- **Enterprise adoption**: Scaling the Enterprise Edition with enhanced governance, multi-tenancy, and hybrid/air-gapped deployments for regulated industries (banking, defense, healthcare).
- **Ecosystem expansion**: Growing the plugin library (1,600+) and blueprints (250+) to connect with more data, cloud, and SaaS tools.
- **Global team growth**: Hiring aggressively (24 open roles) across engineering, sales, customer operations, and marketing, with a remote-first, distributed structure.

## Why Work Here
- **Remote-first**: Fully distributed team – work from anywhere (employees in 10 countries including France, US, UK, Germany, India, Serbia, Spain, Slovenia, Nigeria, Ireland).
- **Flexible hours**: "Flexibility in schedule to be there for life’s important moments" – strong emphasis on work/life balance with a generous vacation policy.
- **Comprehensive benefits**: Premium medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents; hardware/software costs covered; home office or coworking space budget.
- **Engineering culture**: Open-source, developer-first ethos with a flat, transparent team. High autonomy and ownership – "empower engineers to orchestrate any workflow, in any language, on any infrastructure."
- **Growth trajectory**: Fast-growing startup (10x YoY adoption, 48.8% headcount growth) – opportunity to shape the product and culture early. Backed by top-tier founders and VCs.
- **High-impact roles**: Currently hiring for Lead Java Engineer, Senior Full-Stack Engineer, Head of Sales, Developer Advocate, Product Manager, QA Engineer, and more.

## Sources
1. [kestra.io](https://kestra.io/)
2. [kestra.io/about-us](https://kestra.io/about-us)
3. [kestra.io/careers](https://kestra.io/careers)
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/kestra](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kestra)
5. [linkedin.com/company/kestra](https://www.linkedin.com/company/kestra)
6. [TechCrunch: Kestra raises $8M seed](https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/kestra-is-an-open-source-data-orchestration-platform-for-complex-workflows/)
7. [TechCrunch: Kestra raises $25M Series A](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/01/kestra-raises-another-8m-for-its-open-source-orchestration-platform/)

## Other roles at Kestra Technologies

- [Full Stack Engineer, Data Orchestration](https://feeny.ai/job/full-stack-engineer-data-orchestration-kestra-technologies-europe-a9xx27m6hbym) — Europe
- [Product Manager, Data Orchestration](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-data-orchestration-kestra-technologies-europe-ggxf97893ce8) — Europe
- [QA Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/qa-engineer-kestra-technologies-europe-3md2107t81e9) — Europe
- [Senior DevOps Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-devops-engineer-kestra-technologies-europe-j66v6nmas2h6) — Europe
- [Product Manager, AI](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-ai-kestra-technologies-europe-x8t59dn8y2k1) — Europe
- [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-kestra-technologies-united-states-cgsewkkhsqb6) — United States
- [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-kestra-technologies-germany-3sxgjap45azn) — Germany
- [Senior Solution Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-solution-engineer-kestra-technologies-france-61gm0vr5w0wv) — France
- [Senior Business Development Representative](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-business-development-representative-kestra-technologies-united-states-xt750qc2b918) — United States