Backend Python Developer

Summary

Join Howdy.com, a Y Combinator company, as a Backend Engineer to design and build the backend infrastructure for their IDE plug-ins, AI assistant, and retrieval systems. Collaborate with a small team to prototype and scale backend services, ensuring system health and developer experience through observability and alerting. Develop APIs for real-time and offline processing, participate in architecture reviews and on-call rotations, and support core AI platform components. Howdy.com offers a supportive and collaborative environment with opportunities for professional growth. The company values teamwork, continuous improvement, and a positive work atmosphere.

Requirements

• Strong backend architecture skills with hands-on experience in Python (FastAPI, async) or Node.js (TypeScript)
• Proven ability to build fault-tolerant, scalable, and highly available systems, including zero-downtime deployments
• Operationally mature: you build with metrics, logging, monitoring, and alerting in mind, using tools like Datadog, Sentry, or OpenTelemetry
• Solid experience deploying in AWS environments (EC2, S3, RDS, CloudFront, Redis), including multi-region configurations
• Proficiency with PostgreSQL, Redis, and vector/document stores like pgvector or Elasticsearch
• Comfortable working in high-trust, fast-paced, product-driven environments

Responsibilities

• Design and build the backend infrastructure powering our IDE plug-ins, AI assistant, retrieval systems (RAG), and feedback loops
• Collaborate with a small core team to prototype and scale backend services as we grow to support hundreds of developers
• Implement observability and alerting from day one to monitor system health, usage trends, and developer experience
• Develop APIs to support both real-time use cases (e.g., in-IDE suggestions) and offline processing (e.g., data cleaning, model feedback ingestion)
• Participate in architecture reviews, on-call rotations, and cross-functional planning with engineering and product leads
• Support core components of our AI platform, including prompt orchestration, retrieval pipelines, telemetry, and feedback ingestion

Preferred Qualifications

Experience building or supporting LLM-powered systems, RAG pipelines, or data/AI infrastructure

Benefits

• Hardware and accessories to set you up for success
• Personal health insurance benefit (family coverage not included)
• Gym membership
• Community activities and events (either remote or on-site)
• Complimentary English lessons to help you grow both professionally and personally
• Birthday and anniversary presents
• Access to our offices or work remotely—your choice!
• Paid vacation and national holidays (according to your location)
• Flexible work schedule