Principal Backend Engineer

About AutoHDR: AutoHDR is the first leading AI photo editor for real estate photographers. Founded in 2024, the company is based in Downtown Austin and has a team of 10 coworkers and a turnover of 3 million. They process 20,000 images daily and aim to scale to 100,000 images per day while reducing processing time from 30 minutes per shoot to under 10 minutes.

About The Role: We are looking for a Principal Backend Engineer to scale our backend systems and lead a team of junior developers. The role involves building and scaling complex backend systems, working on AI editing models, and mentoring junior developers.

Responsibilities:

- Optimize, grow, and maintain our python/Kubernetes-based system orchestrating 20+ computer vision models.
- Design and implement new algorithms/models for image processing and editing throughout our photo sorting, detection, and editing pipeline.
- Mentor junior developers building features and implementing new models/algorithms in the processing pipeline.

Requirements:

- 6-10+ years building and scaling complex backend systems
- Worked in a role overseeing high volume throughput of any kind
- High agency problem solving skills with low to no guidance
- Extreme productivity and speed on all work
- Obsessive focus on engineering excellence and delivering world class output for users
- Willing to spend extreme amounts of time building AutoHDR to achieve our goal of editing all real estate photos
- Track record of mentoring and growing junior devs
- Expert-level proficiency/experience in Python (FastAPI), relational databases (MySQL), model training/deployment (optional) and Kubernetes (optional)

Expectations:

- The role is based in Downtown Austin and requires 55-60+ hours per week.

Compensation:

- Base salary: $195K - $225K
- Milestone based bonuses of $30K when average editing time per shoot reaches 10 minutes and an additional $60K at 5 minutes per shoot.
- On-Target Earnings: $285K - $315K