The role

You'll join as an equal partner to the senior backend engineer, sharing ownership of the backend so no single person is a bottleneck. This is a founding seat: you'll shape the architecture, not just follow it.

What you'll do

- Design, build and scale the backend services that power partner matching.
- Own API design across an API-first platform.
- Build and tune search and retrieval on Elasticsearch.
- Integrate LLMs into the product (OpenAI today; Gemini on Vertex live; Bedrock and Azure AI next).
- Make architecture decisions with the founding team, and rebuild fast when something doesn't work.
- Work async with teammates in the US and Europe, owning goals end to end.

What we're looking for Must-have

- 5–7 years building backend systems in Python that run at production scale.
- Hands-on Elasticsearch experience.
- Solid API design and experience with API-first architecture.
- At least one 0→1 journey as an early or founding engineer at a startup (team of 5–10 engineers).
- Strong computer science fundamentals.

Strong plus





- LLM integration in production (OpenAI, Gemini, or similar).

Nice to have

- Cloud and Kubernetes on AWS, Azure or GCP.
- Agentic workflows, or search and retrieval systems.
- Domain experience in partner tech (PRM/PSM), sales intelligence, or marketplace and matching systems.

Is this you? You'll thrive here if you:

- Have built, scaled, or even failed at a real startup, and want to do it again with more ownership.
- Work best with a clear goal and the freedom to get there. "Here's the goal, let's check in next week" suits you.
- Think AI-first: you're happy to throw away what doesn't work and rebuild fast.
- Care more about equity, ownership and the scale journey than maximising cash.

This probably isn't for you if you:

- Prefer clear structure, close guidance or a defined process.
- Have worked only at large companies or services firms.
- Haven't run systems in production at real scale.

📌 Founding Engineer (India)
🏢 Recro
📍 India