About Us

Iris is a pre-Series A startup with real momentum. We're building an AI-powered SaaS platform that automates the RFP process, and we're already trusted by over 100 paying clients across mid-market and enterprise sectors. Join our founding engineers to help us build the future of enterprise automation.

The Role We're looking for an experienced Lead Backend Engineer to own and evolve the architecture of our platform. You'll guide backend strategy, mentor engineers, and scale a production system that's already in the hands of real users. This is a key technical leadership role for someone who can balance technical excellence with pragmatism and help turn ambitious engineers into force multipliers.

What You'll Do

• Own the Backend Architecture: Lead the strategy for our current Django REST API, real-time WebSocket infrastructure, and distributed task processing system. You'll be the technical leader guiding the next iteration of our backend.
• Design & Document APIs: Create and maintain APIs for our frontend and partners, ensuring seamless collaboration and clear documentation.
• Scale & Optimize: Manage and improve our architecture to meet our stability and performance goals.
• Enhance Developer Experience: Evaluate and introduce new tools and practices (like logging, error tracking, and monitoring) to improve observability, reliability, and productivity for the engineering team.
• Mentor the Team: Mentor backend engineers, fostering their growth while upholding high technical standards and best practices across our SDLC.

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years of professional experience with Python/Django/FastAPI.
• 5+ years of experience building and documenting APIs for modern frontend platforms.
• 5+ years of experience in driving distributed systems architecture.
• 2+ years of experience with multi-step LLM orchestration workflows.
• 5+ years of experience leading and mentoring engineering teams.
• A strong background in setting up and managing cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Familiarity with AI-powered IDEs (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code).
• Comfortable inheriting and improving a complex codebase.
• Ability to balance healthy technical debate with decisive action.
• Excellent communication skills, able to explain technical decisions to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong collaboration skills, with a proven ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams, including product and sales.

Nice to Have

• AWS Bedrock experience.
• Experience working with IaaC solutions.
• Experience designing and implementing agentic solutions.
• Familiarity with observability tools for debugging LLM applications.
• Security compliance experience (SOC2, RBAC implementation).
• Basic understanding of Next.js/React for better frontend collaboration.

Why Join Iris

• Real Impact: Be a key technical leader in a growing startup with a product already loved by paying customers.
• Cutting-Edge Tech: Work with production-grade, cutting-edge AI technologies and tools.
• Strong Culture: Lead a tight-knit engineering team that values partnership, autonomy, and technical excellence.

Salary range: $180,000-$200,000