Backend Engineer

Riza (Headquarters: San Francisco)

Backend Go Golang Rust Postgres PostgreSQL API Distributed Systems Cloud Wasm V8 microVMs LLM AI REST SQL Back End Engineer

Company: Riza (https://riza.io) is a seed-stage startup based in San Francisco, founded by experienced second-time founders (ex-Twilio, Stripe, Retool). We are a small team of 3 working out of a converted warehouse. We provide secure, high-performance isolated runtimes (WebAssembly, V8, microVMs) for executing untrusted code, particularly code generated by LLMs. Our Code Interpreter API handles billions of executions monthly for AI-native companies.

Role: We are seeking a Backend Engineer to join our founding team. You will focus on developing and scaling our core API, backend services, and potentially contribute to the code execution engine itself. You'll play a key role in building the reliable and scalable infrastructure that our customers depend on.

Responsibilities:
- Design, develop, and maintain Riza's public API (https://docs.riza.io/) using Go and PostgreSQL.
- Contribute to the development of the code execution engine (Go/Rust).
- Build and optimize backend systems for high throughput and reliability.
- Work with databases (PostgreSQL) including schema design and query optimization.
- Collaborate on the design and implementation of new features and products, including code generation workflows.
- Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting for backend services.
- Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code.

Technical Skills Required:
- Strong proficiency in backend development, particularly with Go. Experience with Rust is a plus.
- Solid experience with relational databases, specifically PostgreSQL.
- Experience designing, building, and consuming RESTful APIs.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and infrastructure concepts.
- Understanding of distributed systems principles.
- Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes) is beneficial.
- Familiarity with code execution environments (Wasm, V8, microVMs) is a plus.

Ideal Candidate:
- Thrives in a small, fast-moving startup environment.
- Possesses a strong sense of ownership and can drive projects independently.
- Writes high-quality, robust backend code.
- Is interested in the intersection of AI, code execution, and infrastructure.
- Collaborates effectively with a small, focused team.
- Experience with LLM APIs (Anthropic/OpenAI) is a plus.