Staff AI Backend Engineer (f/m/x)

About the Position

Staff AI Backend Engineer (f/m/x)

Germany Remote, paretos HQ hybrid

Vollzeit

Festanstellung

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About the Role

As a Staff AI Backend Engineer, you will be responsible for the technical backbone of our Decision-Intelligence-Plattform and the architecture that makes it scalable. You will set the direction for building scalable backend services that make our forecasting and optimization models, our agent workflows, and our semantic data layer productively usable. You will work AI-first: using tools like Claude Code or similar CLIs, MCPs, and your own skills as your standard toolkit – and you will determine how the rest of the team uses them. You will think not just in terms of endpoints and databases, but in terms of customer benefit, product impact, and adoption – and you will consistently strengthen the system, rather than just solving the immediate task.

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Responsibilities

• With strong product thinking, you will set the technical direction: You will define how we measure feature adoption, instrument usage patterns, and steer the roadmap together with Product and FDE – responsible for outcomes, not output.
• Scalable backend services in Python (FastAPI, Pydantic) for agent workflows, forecasting, and replenishment will be your responsibility: You will architect, build, and operate them – including the decisions, trade-offs, and standards behind them.
• Clean API and service contracts between the platform, agents, ML models, frontend, and customer systems (ERP, BI, planning tools) will be designed by you – with robustness, observability, and reliability as first-class properties.
• Our semantic data layer – the foundation for precise forecasts and exact agent responses – will be your domain: PostgreSQL modeling, dbt transformations, pipelines, caching, and retrieval, built for scalability across customers and use cases.
• You will define how we integrate LLM and agent systems into the backend: Tool Use, Function Calling, RAG pipelines, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and production deployment – you will set the patterns and quality standards that the team builds against.
• Driving our AI-first engineering culture is central: Using tools like Claude Code, AI-assisted development, and subagents will be part of your daily toolkit, and you will further develop our internal setup (CLAUDE, Hooks, Skills, Plan/Execute/Review loop, Plugins, Docs) to help the team deliver faster and more securely.
• You will translate ambiguous business and customer requirements into a coherent technical strategy together with FDEs and Product, making pragmatic trade-offs between speed, scalability, and maintainability – clearly explained to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• You will prototype quickly and closely with users, bringing ideas into the hands of FDEs and customers within days, gathering feedback independently, iterating on the real workflow, and deciding based on actual usage what gets hardened and rolled out.
• Through code and design reviews, mentoring, documentation, and standards, you will raise the engineering level – you will develop the people around you and make the system more resilient over time.

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Requirements

• 8+ years as a Backend-, Software-, or AI Engineer in a product-oriented environment, with proven experience in leading the design and delivery of complex systems – ideally in a product or SaaS context; startup experience (0→1) is highly welcome.
• Significant parts of a tech organization have been under your control end-to-end: significant services, domains, or platform areas – from architecture and delivery to operation, reliability, and on-call, not just individual features.
• Deep backend expertise in Python (FastAPI, Pydantic), clean and long-lasting API design, asynchronous programming, PostgreSQL and Redis, Docker, and mature CI/CD – at a level where you define standards instead of following them.
• Proven in agile, fast-paced teams: You maintain quality while delivering quickly, holding up in sprints, iterative shipping, and continuous feedback.
• Proven technical leadership: You have been responsible for the architecture of non-trivial systems, made consequential trade-offs, and led multiple engineers through ambiguity – without formal authority.
• A strong product mindset drives you: Not just "How do I build it?", but "Why, for whom, and how do we recognize that it has an impact?" – Thinking in terms of users, adoption, and impact chains.
• Production-grade LLM and agent experience: Prompt engineering, tool use/function calling, RAG, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and the deployment of LLM features that real users can rely on.
• Confident handling of cloud infrastructure (ideally AWS), including Kubernetes and infrastructure-as-code with Terraform – you design, permeate, and operate this stack sovereignly and decide where complexity belongs.
• A high degree of ownership, sovereignty in dealing with ambiguity, and the judgment to know when to go in-depth and when to delegate, document, or simplify.
• Clear, convincing communication, both technical and non-technical, with little ego – you create alignment, document things, and make others better.
• Fluent in English.

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Nice to Have

• Product Management
• Agile
• Technical Leadership
• Cloud-native Architecture
• Communication

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We Offer

• You will receive the hardware setup you need to reach your full potential.
• You will use your personal learning budget (€2000 per year) to continuously develop yourself.
• Flexible working hours: You work when it suits you best.
• You will receive a monthly benefit budget of €60, which you can use as you see fit – whether for Urban Sports Club, a mobility budget for fuel, public transport, or the Germany Ticket, or simply vouchers from your favorite shop. As you prefer.
• A rich selection of snacks and drinks is available in the office at no cost.
• You will join a highly qualified and motivated team of paretoneers who enjoy implementing things.
• You will participate in our quarterly Hacky Days, full of creativity and new ideas.
• We regularly organize professional and social team events, both online and on-site.
• If you are a member of the paretos Dog Club, you are welcome to bring your four-legged friend to the office.
• In the office, you can prove your barista skills and chat with other paretoneers over coffee. Maybe you will be crowned "paretos Office Barista of the Year" at our Christmas party.

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About the Company

paretos is the leading AI-based Decision-Intelligence-Plattform for effective, data-driven decisions across the entire company. Our Business Agents enable the evaluation of complex data sets, prediction of scenarios, and derivation of optimal measures – from demand forecasting to inventory replenishment to strategic decisions at the C-level. All this through a no-code interface, requiring no prior knowledge in data science. paretos is an inclusive company that ensures equal opportunities for all. Our culture is oriented towards the principles of GUNG HO: meaningful work, common goals, and mutual support. We are proud of a team of passionate, high-performing, and caring people of all genders, cultures, and backgrounds.