Founding Backend Engineer

Candle AI is a fast-growing legal-tech startup based in Austin, TX. We provide Email Context Intelligence that helps legal teams respond faster, stay consistent and capture more billable time.

Backed by tier 1 investors including The Legal Tech Fund (TLTF), we’re building the infrastructure layer that makes AI-driven legal workflows reliable, secure and scalable.

We’re hiring a Founding Backend Engineer to own and scale the backend systems powering Candle. This is a backend-first role: you’ll design APIs, data models and event-driven services that support a multi-tenant AI product with strict security and reliability requirements.

You will be a key builder with real ownership, turning rough ideas into shipped features and shaping our architecture and engineering standards.

• Serverless backend platform: AWS Lambda APIs and async workflows powering the core product.
• Multi-tenant architecture: secure data modeling and event-driven pipelines.
• Auth and integrations: OAuth 2.0 and OIDC flows and secure third-party interfaces.
• Infrastructure and operations:
  IaC, CI/CD, observability, performance and cost optimization.
• AI enablement layer: backend primitives that power context assembly, orchestration and evals.
• Backend:
  Python (primary), Type Script and Node.js (infra and tooling)
• AWS:
  Lambda, API Gateway, Dynamo
  
  DB, SQS and Event Bridge, S3, Cloud Watch and X-Ray
• IaC: AWS CDK (Type Script)
• Auth: OAuth 2.0, OIDC and AWS Cognito

• 5+ years building and owning production backend systems.
• Product-oriented execution: you turn ambiguity into shipped measurable outcomes.
• Strong experience with AWS serverless architectures including Lambda, Dynamo
  
  DB, API Gateway, SQS and Event Bridge.
• Proven ability to design scalable multi-tenant systems with security and cost efficiency in mind.
• Hands-on experience implementing OAuth 2.0 and OIDC integrations.
• Strong infrastructure mindset including IaC, observability, reliability and operational rigor.

• Experience with SOC 2 Type II, including IAM, encryption, tenant isolation and audit logging.
• Deep familiarity with AI tooling and LLM interfaces, including RAG patterns, embeddings, vector retrieval and orchestration workflows.

• Systems thinker with strong backend depth across latency, reliability, cost and maintainability.
• Self-starter who ships quickly and raises the quality bar.
• Early-stage or founding-team experience.

• Founding impact: shape architecture and engineering culture from day one.
• High ownership: own major systems end-to-end and see them in production quickly.
• Tight product loops: work directly with law firms and design partners.

• Austin, TX (Hybrid)
• Small, highly technical team
• High ownership, fast iteration and strong bias toward shipping
• Hiring process may include a paid trial period to evaluate mutual fit