Prospera AI - AI Backend Engineer

About Prospera AI We’re building Sophie, a multi-agent AI orchestrator that helps wealth management advisors deliver more personalized, effective service to their clients. Our platform analyzes behavioral patterns, communication preferences, and emotional states to transform how advisors understand and serve their clients. We’re a small, well-funded team at an exciting inflection point—our technology works, customers love the product, and now we’re building the engineering team to scale. The Role We’re looking for an AI/Backend Engineer to own and evolve our LLM orchestration pipeline. You’ll be the first dedicated engineering hire, working directly with our CTO to transform Sophie from a working prototype into a scalable, enterprise-ready platform. This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role. You’ll shape technical decisions that define the product for years to come. What You’ll Do Own the AI Pipeline Design and optimize our multi-agent orchestration system Implement parallelization and streaming to dramatically reduce response latency Build robust prompt management with versioning and A/B testing capabilities Build RAG Systems Design retrieval-augmented generation for accurate, contextual responses Work with vector databases, embeddings, and relevance scoring Optimize for both speed and accuracy at scale Develop Production APIs Build developer-friendly APIs connecting our AI capabilities to the frontend Design for future integrations with CRMs and advisor tools Implement proper authentication, rate limiting, and documentation Shape the Foundation Establish code review practices and testing standards Document architecture decisions for future team members Contribute to technical patents and IP development What We’re Looking For Must Have 4+ years production Python experience (async patterns, type hints) Hands-on experience with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar) Strong understanding of prompt engineering and multi-step LLM workflows Production API development experience (FastAPI or similar) Strong SQL and PostgreSQL skills Great to Have Experience with RAG systems and vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector) Streaming/real-time implementation experience (SSE, WebSockets) TypeScript/JavaScript familiarity FinTech or regulated industry background Strong UX intuition—you notice when flows have one too many clicks Pragmatic perfectionism—you know when to polish and when to ship Clear communicator who can explain technical constraints in business terms Collaborative mindset—frontend doesn’t exist in isolation How You Work Self-directed and comfortable with ambiguity Strong written communication (async-first culture) Pragmatic problem-solver who ships iteratively Collaborative mindset with ego-free approach to feedback What This Role Is Not We want to be upfront about expectations: Not a pure ML/research role—you’ll apply LLMs, not train them Not a management role—near-term focus is individual contribution Not fully autonomous—you’ll collaborate closely with the CTO on architecture Not 9-to-5—startup intensity applies, though we respect work-life balance Compensation & Benefits Equity: Meaningful early-stage grant with 4-year vesting Equipment: Professional Laptop ready to work with AI provided + stipend for remote work when 6 month mark is met Time Off: Flexible PTO with a minimum 15 days encouraged Learning: $1,000 annual professional development budget Schedule: Flexible hours with 3-4 hours daily overlap (Americas timezones) The Interview Process Silver.dev Recruiter Screen Silver.dev System Design Screen Technical Screen & System Design Interview with Tech Lead + CTO Assessment Deep-Dive with Senior Engineer + CTO Culture Fit Check with CEO