---
title: 'Staff Engineer, Agentic Backend at Sema4.ai'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-agentic-backend-sema4-ai-atlanta-jzh9brje1gb4'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-15'
---

# Staff Engineer, Agentic Backend at Sema4.ai

- **Company:** Sema4.ai
- **Location:** Atlanta, GA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-02-02
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sema4.ai/129e2f40-6923-439b-a125-87ae85531fa4

## Job description

The Opportunity At [Sema4.ai](http://Sema4.ai), we’re building an Enterprise AI Agent platform that fundamentally changes how knowledge work gets done—by enabling people and AI agents to collaborate in durable, trustworthy ways. As a Staff Backend Engineer on the Agent Platform, you will be the engineering counterpart to the AI team. While the AI team designs and evolves the underlying cognitive architectures, you build the production systems, features, and workflows that turn those capabilities into customer-facing features and functionality. This is an early, high-impact role. You’ll operate at the platform/product boundary, shaping how agents are configured, executed, observed, and scaled in real enterprise environments. Your work will directly determine whether our agents are not just intelligent—but usable, reliable, and operable at scale.

## Who You Are

Agent Systems Engineer You know how to turn LLM- and agent-based building blocks into real backend systems. You’re comfortable working one layer above raw cognitive primitives: orchestration, execution models, state management, failure recovery, permissions, and lifecycle management. You understand the sharp edges of agent systems and design defensively around them. Platform-Oriented Builder You think in terms of capabilities, not demos. You care deeply about APIs, contracts, defaults, and extensibility. You design systems that other engineers and customers can build on, reliably and easily. Product-Minded Technologist You work closely with product and design, and care deeply about how features are actually used. You translate product intent into durable backend abstractions and push back when necessary to protect system integrity, operability, or long-term velocity. Engineer With Judgment You move fast and with stability. You know when to prototype and when to harden. You think about failure modes, migrations, and operational realities early—even when requirements are still evolving.

## What You’ll Do

Build Product-Grade Agent Infrastructure Design and implement the backend systems that make agents usable in production: execution engines, workflow orchestration, tool invocation frameworks, document processing systems, database interfaces, authentication and authorization, and lifecycle management. Turn AI Capabilities into Features Work closely with the AI team to consume new cognitive primitives and turn them into concrete, shippable functionality: agent behaviors, configuration models, execution semantics, and observability surfaces that customers can rely on. Own Reliability, Scale, and Operability Ensure agent-powered systems behave predictably under load and over time. This includes handling retries, partial failures, long-running workflows, cost controls, and performance tradeoffs. You’ll help define what “production-ready” means for agents. Shape the Platform Surface Area Influence API design, data models, and internal contracts to ensure the platform remains cohesive as it grows. You’ll help prevent accidental complexity and keep the system understandable and evolvable. Contribute to Technical Leadership Participate in design reviews and code reviews, help set engineering standards, and mentor other engineers. You’ll act as a force multiplier across the product engineering organization.

## What You Bring

- 7+ years of backend software engineering experience in production systems
- Deep experience building backend services in Python, including performance, reliability, and observability concerns
- Hands-on experience working with LLM- or agent-based systems, especially orchestration, tools, or workflow execution
- Strong product and systems thinking: you understand how technical decisions show up in user experience
- Strong communication skills: whether you’re talking to colleagues, customers, or machines, you communicate clearly, concisely, and collaboratively
- A high-ownership mindset: you care deeply about the systems you build, and you take responsibility for their long-term health

## About Sema4.ai

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Sema4.ai provides an enterprise AI agent platform that enables organizations to build, run, and manage AI agents to automate complex back-office workflows.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Atlanta, Georgia, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Rob Bearden (CEO), Ram Venkatesh (CTO), Paul Codding (SVP of Product and Customer Experience)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Enterprise AI Agent Platform, Back-Office Automation, Software Development
- **Target customers**: Large enterprises with complex, document- and data-heavy back-office operations (Finance, Accounting, Operations)
- **Mission or purpose**: To empower enterprises to automate their most complex challenges with cutting-edge agentic AI, transforming business operations through autonomous, intelligent agents.

## Products & Services
- **Sema4.ai Enterprise AI Agent Platform**: A comprehensive platform (SaaS/Cloud) for building, running, and managing AI agents. It includes three layers:
    - **Agent Layer**: Automates key back-office workflows like quote-to-cash and procure-to-pay, integrating with enterprise systems.
    - **Context Layer**: Provides shared business understanding by creating a consistent view of data across sources, enabling natural language interaction.
    - **Admin Layer**: A single, focused experience for business users to find, use, and work with agents.
- **Document Intelligence**: Agents with "X-ray vision" to see and understand any kind of document.
- **Runbooks**: Enables non-technical users to create and manage AI agents using natural language.
- **AI Actions**: Pre-built integrations to connect agents with applications and data sources in minutes.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding of **$55.5M** (Series A)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: 6 investors (names not publicly listed on LinkedIn); partners include major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, Snowflake) and LLM providers (OpenAI, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Bedrock, Snowflake Cortex).
- **Growth Signals**: Acquired Robocorp in January 2024; raised a $30.5M Series A in January 2024 and a subsequent $25M Series A in July 2025; LinkedIn followers grew 39.4% year-over-year; serves leading enterprises.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Open-Source Foundation**: Built on an open-source framework that empowers developers and engineers, fostering community innovation and transparency.
- **Enterprise-Grade Security & Control**: Agents run in the customer's own cloud environment (AWS, Azure, GCP, Snowflake) with their own LLMs, providing complete control over security, compliance, and data.
- **Natural Language Runbooks**: Enables non-technical business users to create and manage AI agents without coding, lowering the barrier to automation.
- **Deterministic & Auditable Outcomes**: Designed for back-office processes requiring auditable, deterministic results, unlike many "black box" AI solutions.
- **Proven Leadership Team**: Founded by industry veterans from Cloudera, Docker, Hortonworks, SpringSource, and JBoss, with deep expertise in data management, distributed systems, and open source.

## Strategic Focus
- **Enterprise Adoption**: Scaling the platform to serve large enterprises, with a focus on finance and accounting automation (invoice reconciliation, AP help desk, receivables matching).
- **Open-Source Community**: Building an open-source framework to drive innovation and developer adoption.
- **Platform Expansion**: Continuously adding new agent capabilities, integrations, and use cases to expand the platform's reach.
- **Global Growth**: Operating in 8 countries (including Finland, Latvia, India, Poland, and Monaco) with a remote-first culture.

## Why Work Here
- **Remote-First Culture**: The company has been remote-first since day one, offering flexible working hours and the ability to work from anywhere. Some roles may be hybrid or require specific locations.
- **Ownership & Equity**: All employees receive equity, reflecting a belief that hard work should be rewarded.
- **Health & Wellness**: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage; annual wellbeing benefits reimbursement; work-from-home equipment allowance.
- **Retirement**: 401(k) pension plan with matching contributions.
- **Time Off**: Flexible time-off policy, encouraging employees to plan based on personal needs and workload.
- **Culture**: Values include "Start with the customer," "Action over deliberation," and "Be kind to one another." The company emphasizes a fast-paced, results-oriented environment with a bias for action.
- **Diversity & Inclusion**: A modern, flexible, and caring workplace where diversity and inclusion are fundamental.
- **Fun & Connection**: Annual hackathons with fantastic prizes, company-wide off-sites, and meetups to connect with colleagues worldwide.
- **Interview Process**: Typically 3-4 rounds, with some roles requiring a take-home challenge (presentation or coding challenge). Most interviews are virtual.
- **Early Career Programs**: Offers internships and early career roles (e.g., Forward Deployed Engineer, Product Manager – Agents, AI/ML Researcher).

## Sources
1. [sema4.ai](https://sema4.ai/)
2. [sema4.ai/about-us](https://sema4.ai/about-us/)
3. [sema4.ai/careers](https://sema4.ai/careers/)
4. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sema4-ai)
5. [Built In](https://builtin.com/company/sema4-ai)

## Other roles at Sema4.ai

- [Founding Product Manager - Finance](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-product-manager-finance-sema4-ai-atlanta-qjxpwpcm9a40) — Atlanta, GA
- [Staff Engineer, AI](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-ai-sema4-ai-atlanta-ga-or-madison-ssa0ytjs2ps8) — Atlanta GA OR Madison, WI
- [Forward Deployed Engineer - AI Agent Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-ai-agent-engineer-sema4-ai-atlanta-bevne1h6mbxt) — Atlanta, GA
- [Tech Lead, Agentic Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/tech-lead-agentic-engineering-sema4-ai-atlanta-ga-or-madison-2xqb3fr98rn7) — Atlanta GA OR Madison, WI