Senior Backend / AI Infrastructure Engineer

Company DescriptionOpen Session is a design studio building its first product. We combine deep design systems expertise from years of product design work with a real understanding of branded content and holistic marketing strategy in today's landscape. The team has 20+ years experience at companies like Google, SAP, Universal Audio, and Salesforce. We bring deep technical and creative experience to everything we build.Role DescriptionWe're looking for a Senior Backend / AI Infrastructure Engineer to join as a full-time remote contractor. You'll work directly with our founder to scale the backend, harden authentication, and optimize our embedding and vector search pipelines for production workloads.This is a hands-on role. You'll design scalable data patterns, optimize database queries and indexing strategies, build and maintain our RAG/CAG embedding pipeline with multimodal routing, implement production-grade authentication, and integrate external tools via MCP (Model Context Protocol). You'll also support front-end execution by wiring UI components to backend services.We are a Claude Code-first team. This isn't optional. It's how we move fast. Custom skills, commands, and MCP integrations are part of our daily workflow. We expect you to be productive with Claude Code from day one.What you'll work on:Backend architecture for scale, including caching layers, query optimization, and concurrent usersAuthentication and access control, including enterprise SSO (SAML, OIDC) and hardened RLS policiesEmbedding data pipeline with mixture-of-experts routing, rate limiting, back pressure, and retry logicDatabase architecture, including schema optimization, migrations with rollback, monitoring, and disaster recoveryCI/CD refinement with staging environments, feature flags, and deployment rollbackFront-end execution support including data fetching, state management, and API integrationQualificationsMust have:Claude Code power user. You should be highly proficient with Claude Code CLI as a primary development tool.RAG and CAG expertise. Deep understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation and Cache-Augmented Generation patterns, including multimodal content.Embeddings and vector databases. Hands-on experience with embedding models (Voyage AI, OpenAI, Cohere) and vector storage (pgvector, Pinecone, Qdrant).MCP integration. Understanding of Model Context Protocol for integrating external tools into LLM-powered applications.Strong PostgreSQL. Indexing, query optimization, Row-Level Security, migrations.TypeScript and Node.js. Production-grade backend development.Technology you should be familiar with: Next.js, React, Supabase PostgreSQL, pgvector, Anthropic SDK, Voyage AI, Vercel, Vitest, Playwright, Bun.Nice to have:Prior experience building AI-powered applications, not just using APIsCreative and design sensibility. Appreciation for well-designed, user-facing products.Supabase experience, or similar (Firebase, Hasura)Authentication systems including OAuth, SAML, JWT, and enterprise SSOVoyage AI or similar multimodal embedding providersWorkOS or enterprise SSO implementationExperience scaling multi-tenant SaaS applicationsCompensation and LogisticsFully remote, async-friendly (global candidates welcome)Full-time contractor (1099)$5,000/month starting rate (fixed for first month)Rate increases based on demonstrated delivery and execution qualityQuestions? Contact Karim Bouhdary