As the first Backend Engineer, you'll develop APIs, collaborate on ML model integration, and manage backend infrastructure and deployments.
About us:
The role:
What you’ll do:
You will bring to the team:
Logistics:
At Phota Labs, we’re building visual GenAI that helps people capture, express, and relive their memories — in ways that feel effortless, personal, and emotionally resonant. Our core technology enables personalized image generation that faithfully reflects who you are and the moments you experienced. Our first goal is to bring visual GenAI into everyday photography.
We're a small team of researchers, engineers, and designers who have always been at the forefront of how people capture, edit, and share images and videos. We build with our hands and hearts. We believe GenAI is the next shift for photography, and are seeking builders who share this vision — people like us, like you. We're just getting started!
As our first Backend Engineer, you’ll work side-by-side with our research scientists and engineers to transform cutting-edge ML models and pipelines into production-ready APIs and systems. You’ll also own the broader backend foundation required for a consumer app, from authentication and user data management to analytics and security. This role combines rapid prototyping with building a robust platform that can scale as we grow.
- Design, build, and maintain APIs that power our applications, ensuring reliability, scalability, and security.
- Collaborate with ML engineers to productionize models and pipelines into performant, fault-tolerant services
- Handle infrastructure, deployments, monitoring, and CI/CD pipelines for a smooth developer and user experience.
- Partner with frontend engineers to iterate quickly while maintaining technical quality and best practices.
- Own projects end-to-end—from concept and prototype through deployment and scaling.
- Lay the foundation for future engineering hires by documenting, standardizing, and mentoring as the team grows.
- Have experience building backend systems from 0 → 1 (either as an early engineer at a startup or a technical lead on new products).
- Have strong experience with API design and integrating with client-facing applications.
- Are comfortable with databases, caching layers, and designing schemas for real-time and analytical workloads.
- Have worked with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and infrastructure-as-code.
- Have familiarity with serving and integrating AI/ML models in production.
- Enjoy rapid prototyping but hold a high bar for long-term maintainability, testing, and reliability.
- Take ownership, learn quickly, and are excited to wear many hats as part of a small team.
- This role is based in San Jose, where we work in person. We believe the best ideas come from being in the same room.
- We sponsor visas. We are committed to working through the process together for the right candidates. If you're currently outside the US, we're also committed to helping you relocate to the US throughout this process.
- We offer generous health, dental, and vision coverage, unlimited PTO, paid parental leave, and relocation support as needed.
- Don't meet every single qualification? That’s okay — we care more about your trajectory than checking every box. If the role excites you and the mission resonates, we'd love to hear from you.
Note: In the event your application is successful and an offer of employment is made to you, any offer of employment will be conditional on the results of a background check, performed by a third party acting on our behalf.
Top Skills
Analytical Workloads
Api Design
AWS
Azure
Ci/Cd
Cloud Platforms
Docker
GCP
Infrastructure-As-Code
Kubernetes
Ml Models
Real-Time Databases
Phota Labs San Jose, California, USA Office
San Jose, CA, United States
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