Backend Software Engineer

High-stakes industries are falling behind on AI adoption. Their workflows can’t afford wrong answers. And AI can’t be trusted to give right ones because of hallucinations. The barrier isn’t that the models aren’t smart enough. It’s that no one can verify what they produce. The fix isn’t a better model, it’s a trust layer: every output traceable, every calculation auditable, every answer reproducible.

Kepler is the agent harness - the infrastructure layer that wraps around AI models to make their outputs reliable, traceable, and verifiable. The model is a replaceable component. The harness is the product.

In Kepler's architecture, the LLM orchestrates - it decides what data to gather, what to compute, how to structure the output. But every actual data point, every extracted value, every calculation flows through deterministic code pipelines. The LLM never touches the data itself. Every value carries provenance metadata back to its exact source. Every computation is auditable and reproducible. Verification loops cross-check outputs before users ever see them.

We started in finance because the stakes are highest and the tolerance for error is zero. We’ve built a finance research product that lets analysts supercharge their workflow: pulling comparables, building models and researching filings. No more double-checking every number AI spits out. Every number tracing back to the source, every time.

But the architecture - provenance, deterministic computation, verification - applies anywhere trust in AI output matters: chemicals, legal, healthcare. Models are commoditizing fast. The trust layer is what's missing and the market is massive.

The founding team spent a combined 40+ years at Palantir building the type of large-scale data infrastructure that Kepler requires. Our CTO created Palantir's first AI platform and built the analytics engine behind $100M+ contracts. Our founding engineers led Foundry's core systems - Ontology, Fusion, Workshop, FoundryML - and scaled data products at Meta to 1B+ users.

We’ve paired this deep technical foundation with a repeat founder profile. Our CEO built and scaled a data company to $15M ARR before successfully selling it. He then became Citadel's first Head of Business Engineering, experiencing first hand the problems we are now solving. We have a team who’ve been on both sides: building systems like this at massive scale and selling it into the buyers who need it most.

We’re backed by investors who built the modern AI and data stacks, plus the builders of iconic commercial businesses. This includes founders of OpenAI, Meta AI Research, MotherDuck, dbt Labs and Square as well as PebbleBed, Company Ventures and Mantis VC firms.

You'll architect and build core systems that power Kepler's AI research platform. You'll own critical infrastructure: backend services that orchestrate AI workflows, data pipelines that process billions of data points, and the systems that financial professionals rely on for million-dollar decisions. You'll shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and drive architectural decisions that define the platform.

This role is for engineers who want to build foundational technology at the intersection of AI and finance, where your technical leadership directly impacts how clients make critical business decisions.

Within your first 90 days, you will:

• Own and ship a major production system end-to-end

• Drive architectural decisions that shape platform direction

• See your code power research at top financial institutions

• Mentor engineers and establish engineering best practices

• Architect backend systems: Design and build scalable services that orchestrate AI workflows, manage data pipelines, and integrate with enterprise financial tools.

• Build enterprise data integrations: Ingest and normalize data from scattered sources: public filings, earnings transcripts, market data feeds, research reports. Architect robust pipelines that transform fragmented data into a unified platform.

• Integrate AI into production: Language models and AI capabilities powering intelligent research workflows that augment human decision-making.

• Drive technical direction: Make architectural decisions, evaluate trade-offs, and establish patterns that scale across the platform.

• Own systems end-to-end: Architecture to production. Services, database optimization, deployment, monitoring, reliability.

• Optimize performance: Database queries, API response times, pipeline throughput. Build systems that scale to enterprise demands.

• Ship with production excellence: Comprehensive testing, monitoring, deployment pipelines. Set the standard for engineering quality.

• Mentor and grow the team: Code reviews, architectural guidance, and technical mentorship for junior engineers.

• 5+ years building production software. No upper limit, comp scales with experience.

• Backend: Python or Node.js, API design, PostgreSQL, AWS

• Architecture: Proven track record designing and scaling distributed systems

• Data: Large datasets, ETL pipelines, analytics infrastructure

• Technical leadership: Experience driving architectural decisions and mentoring engineers

• Practices: Git workflows, CI/CD, automated testing, observability

• Strong communicator who can articulate technical trade-offs to engineering and business stakeholders

• Product mindset: user-focused, iterates on feedback, solves real problems

• Thrives in fast-paced environments with high ownership

• Financial services experience preferred but not required

Don't check every box? Apply anyway. We prioritize problem-solving ability, systems thinking, and drive to build transformative agentic infrastructure.

• Backend: Rust - agent orchestration, data extraction, computation pipelines.

• Frontend: TypeScript, React - the analyst workspace and verification interfaces.

• Data: PostgreSQL, plus direct integrations with official data sources.

• Infra: AWS.

• AI: Model-agnostic by design. We currently use Claude and GPT. The model is the replaceable part.

• Direct collaboration with engineers who built Palantir's core systems:

• Weekly 1:1s with founders and senior engineers

• Deep architectural reviews and guidance on system design

• Clear growth path toward staff engineering and technical leadership

• Shape the technical culture of a growing engineering organization

• 100% covered top-of-the-line medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their families. HSA maxed by the company to the IRS limit.

• Automatic coverage for life, AD&D, and disability insurance.

• Daily lunch in office.

• Unlimited PTO policy.

• Development environment budget - latest MacBook Pro, multiple monitors, ergonomic setup, and any development tools you need.

• "Build anything" budget - dedicated funding for whatever tools, libraries, datasets, or infrastructure you need to solve technical challenges, no questions asked.

• Learning budget - attend any conference, course, or program that makes you better at what we're building.

• Trust as the Default: People do their best work when confidence is mutual. We show our work, keep our promises, and flag risks before they bite. Trust isn't an aspiration - it's the baseline.

• Forward-Deployed with Product DNA: We own customer outcomes while building a product company. We don't win if they don't win.

• Extreme Ownership: If you notice a problem, you own it by by making sure it doesn’t fall through the cracks. Authority comes from initiative, not job titles. Once you step up, you're accountable for the outcome.

• Production-First Engineering: We design for critical workloads from day one. Durable execution, blue/green deploys, automated rollbacks, continuous delivery with end-to-end observability.

• Communicate with Intent: Great work disappears without great communication. We push information to the people who need it, when they need it. Silence is never the safe choice.

• Earn it Every Day: Your work speaks for itself. We create an environment where the best idea wins, the strongest work gets recognized, and everyone is held to the same high standard.

• Keep Raising the Bar: Great teams compound. Every hire raises the bar, every win gets named, every person gets the tools and runway to grow.

Kepler is an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. We are committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment.