Senior Backend Engineer

About Distill Distill is on a mission to empower professionals to excel through comprehensive, actionable insights on people and companies. In more simple terms, we’re using LLMs to create profiles on people and companies that are a summary of everything there is to know about them. You can think of it as AI generated Wikipedia pages for everyone else. Distill is backed by top tier VCs (funding has yet to be announced) and was founded in 2024 by Russ Heddleston and Tim Su. Both are multi-time founders with exits under their belts who love building usable, delightful B2B software that targets the end user. Tim previously started and sold a todo app called Astrid to Yahoo! and then went on to start Tandem, a remote work communication tool backed by a16z. Russ previously started and sold Pursuit.com to Meta and then started and sold DocSend to Dropbox. Distill is a remote-first team as Tim is happily settled in Mountain View and Russ is exploring NYC. Come join as we make use of LLMs to create delightful B2B software that end users love! Role Overview: As a Backend Engineer at Distill , you will be an integral part of our engineering team, responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining robust backend systems that power our platform. You will have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge technologies, make decisions about long-term architecture, and contribute to the growth and success of our product. Key Responsibilities: Design, develop, and maintain backend services using Node.js and Typescript in a production environment. Work closely with the CTO and other technical staff to design and implement robust AI-based systems for building rich profiles of people and companies. Build with k8s, AWS, and serverless to deploy and maintain scalable infrastructure. Ensure the security of our systems by writing secure code and implementing best practices. Collaborate to troubleshoot issues, optimize performance, and improve reliability. Requirements: 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on backend engineering. Proficiency in Node.js / Typescript. Experience shipping software quickly in production systems. Exceptional problem-solving skills and creativity in overcoming technical challenges. Ability to work independently and in a fast-paced startup environment. Nice to Have: Experience working with Postgres in production. Experience with web scraping, crawling, and indexing. Familiarity with managing search systems such as Elastic or Solr. Experience working with ML, NLP, or Language Models in production. Why Join Us: A Proven Team: Tim and Russ have successfully built and sold multiple startups. Tim build and sold Astrid to Yahoo!. Russ most recently built and sold DocSend to Dropbox for $165m. Before that he started and sold Pursuit to Meta. They've done this before and are excited to do it again. Immediate Impact: Be part of a small, growing startup and make a significant impact on our product and users. Build Cool Stuff: Work with cutting-edge technologies and solve challenging problems. Highly Technical Team: Work and think with world-class engineers Collaborative Culture: At Distill , we foster a collaborative and egalitarian culture where the best idea wins. We assume good intent and are customer-focused, valuing diversity and creativity. Remote Team: Join a remote team that collaborates through a variety of online tools, with quarterly in-person meetups. Many of us are parents who understand the need for flexibility. Benefits: We offer health insurance, dental care, a home office stipend, and cover expenses for in-person team meetups.