
Senior Backend Engineer at Hedra (San Francisco, CA)
Hedra· San Francisco, CA·
Role details
Job description
SUMMARY
As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will design, build, and scale the backend systems that power Hedra’s developer platform and inference infrastructure. You’ll build the services and APIs that allow developers and production customers to access, orchestrate, and run first- and third-party visual models at scale.
You’ll work across the core platform, building secure, reliable, and scalable Python services on AWS and solving problems around inference orchestration, asynchronous workloads, model routing, authentication, billing, observability, and platform reliability. You’ll work with systems like Postgres, Redis, S3, and DynamoDB while helping evolve the infrastructure as usage and model complexity grow.
You’ll work closely with engineers and researchers building physical world models across generation, perception, prediction, and planning, and help turn frontier research into infrastructure that developers can reliably build on. As Hedra expands beyond media generation into the broader class of physical world models, you’ll have significant ownership over the backend systems that make those models accessible at scale.
We’re looking for full-time hires to join us in our San Francisco office.
REQUIRED EXPERIENCE
- Experience developing scalable services using Python, using frameworks such as FastAPI and Pydantic
- Experience building and scaling cloud-based infrastructure leveraging Kubernetes and EKS
- Experience working with relational databases
- At least 5 years of professional experience building backend services
NICE TO HAVE
- Experience building high availability services using CI/CD, full ranges of test validation approaches, monitoring and alerting
- Familiarity with authentication / authorization, utilizing standards such as oauth2, OIDC, and JWT
- Experience writing unit and integration tests and working with CI/CD and dev-containers
- Familiarity with AWS IAM, ALB/NLB, route53, S3, Cloudflare
- Experience developing/scaling pipelines, event streaming/processing in AWS, using tools such as SQS or Kafka
- Experience architecting and implementing REST APIs for distributed systems
- Experience with k8s, docker, especially in the context of deploying machine learning models on nvidia hardware
BENEFITS
- Competitive compensation and equity
- 401k
- Healthcare (Silver PPO Medical, Vision, Dental)
- Lunch and snacks at the office
Why work at Hedra
- High-Impact Work: Join a small, fast-growing team (~44 people) building frontier AI models and products that are already used by hundreds of thousands of businesses.
- Culture & Values: Emphasizes ownership, action, hands-on leadership, customer obsession, empathy, respect, and unity. Described as a meritocracy where ideas are valued regardless of title. hedra.com
- Cutting-Edge Tech: Work on the latest in generative AI (video, image, audio) with a team that includes talent from Meta, HeyGen, Synthesia, and other top AI labs. linkedin.com
- Locations: Offices in San Francisco and New York. Remote/hybrid policy is not explicitly stated, but the presence of multiple offices and a globally distributed team suggests flexibility.
- Active Hiring: Currently hiring for multiple high-impact roles including Research Scientist, Senior Full-Stack Engineer, Research Engineer, Staff Growth Engineer, and Senior Backend Engineer. jobs.ashbyhq.com
- Rapid Growth: Yearly headcount growth of +108.7% and strong funding signal a high-growth trajectory with ample opportunity for career advancement. linkedin.com