← All roles

Senior Backend Engineer

Orbital· AI
Apply on company site
Hybrid (London, UK)Full-timePosted 3mo ago

About the role

Backend engineer responsible for designing, building and operating core backend systems powering CurieOS, collaborating with ML researchers and domain experts, and driving engineering quality and scalable architectures.

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement APIs, services and data pipelines that power CurieOS, with a focus on reliability, performance and clean abstractions
  • Build and maintain integrations between our AI models, scientific tools and internal workflows
  • Own the full lifecycle of backend features from design through deployment, monitoring and iteration
  • Write well-tested, maintainable code and contribute to a culture of high engineering standards through code review, documentation and technical discussion
  • Improve system observability, reliability and performance — instrument, monitor and optimise the systems you build
  • Make pragmatic technical decisions that balance speed of delivery with long-term maintainability
  • Work closely with ML researchers, product engineers and domain experts to understand their needs and translate them into robust backend solutions
  • Contribute to architectural decisions and help shape the technical direction of the platform
  • Share knowledge, mentor peers and help establish best practices as the team grows

Qualifications

  • Backend engineering experience with strong programming skills
  • Proven experience designing, building and operating backend systems in production — APIs, data pipelines, event-driven architectures or similar
  • Strong fundamentals in at least one backend language (e.g. Python, Go, Rust, Java/Kotlin) and comfort working across the stack when needed
  • Experience with databases (relational and/or graph), message queues, caching layers and cloud infrastructure
  • A track record of shipping and iterating on software that real users depend on, with a strong sense of what makes systems reliable and maintainable
  • The ability to reason about system design, data modelling and engineering trade-offs — and to communicate these effectively
  • An ability to debug complex distributed systems through meticulous attention to detail, structured investigation and carefully chosen instrumentation
  • A genuine interest in building software that enables breakthrough scientific and industrial applications
  • Bonus: Previous experience in AI/ML environments, familiarity with AI workflows and tooling, graph databases, knowledge graphs or scientific data platforms; experience with IaC, Docker/Kubernetes or CI/CD pipelines
  • Upon reading Hamming's You and Your Research, alignment with quotes printed in the description

Skills

Required:Backend programmingAPI design and developmentData pipelinesDatabases (relational/graph)Message queues and cachingCloud infrastructureObservability and debuggingSystem design and data modellingCollaboration with cross-functional teams
Nice to have:Mentoring and knowledge sharing

Benefits

  • Equal opportunity employer
  • Diversity and inclusive environment
Last updated Sep 9, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Orbital

Advanced Materials for Next-Gen Data Centers

Orbital builds next-gen data center products powered by AI-discovered advanced materials—solving industry’s hardest challenges with performance breakthroughs.

Data CentersAdvanced MaterialsAI
Company profileWebsite

More open roles at Orbital