Senior Engineer - High Performance Data Systems

About us

We're solving AI's hardest problem: alignment.

Encord is the data layer for Physical AI and enterprise, serving as core infrastructure for 300+ of the world's leading AI teams, including Woven by Toyota, Hitachi, Skydio, AbbVie and Dyna, Walden and Agility Robotics. From autonomous vehicles and robotics to sports and healthcare, we're solving AI's hardest problem: turning complex, real-world data into production-ready intelligent systems.

We're a team of founders, scientists, quants, researchers, and former Olympians, who’ve helped build some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley, and alumni of MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial. We’ve raised $110M from legendary technology investors, early backers of companies like Databricks, ElevenLabs and Vercel, and we’re growing at an extraordinary pace.

The role

Most engineers never get to redesign core infrastructure for the next 100x of scale. On Foundations, that's the job.

AI teams are generating video, images, 3D sensor data and documents faster than anyone's systems can keep up. Help us build the high-performance data systems behind the AI data platform for robotics and beyond.

You'll join Foundations, the backend backbone of Encord. We build the reliable, scalable, fast systems every other team and every customer runs on. The work sits deep in distributed and data-intensive systems: storage, indexing, querying and processing multimodal data at a scale few companies ever reach.

The timing is rare. A year ago we were a team of 100; now we're over 150 and still accelerating, driven by massive demand. We are building the team to unlock our next orders of magnitude of scale and capability.

What you'll do

• Own significant projects in our data systems end to end: design, architecture, deployment, monitoring and measuring the impact you made

• Build distributed systems that stay fast and correct under load, and reason carefully about every way they can fail

• Shape performant protocols and APIs, that customers build directly on top of

• Find simple solutions to complex domains at scale, and know when boring technology wins

• Raise the bar for everyone around you through code reviews, pairing and sharing what you know

Why engineers join Foundations

• Scale that's genuinely hard. Multimodal AI data is big, messy and growing fast. You'll solve problems most backend engineers only read about.

• Real ownership. You'll own whole systems, not tickets, and the architectural calls are yours to make.

• Work that ships. Your systems power 300+ AI teams, including Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath and Zipline.

• Long-term thinking. A team that plans 24 months out and gives you room to build things properly.

• The right moment. A Series C company growing fast, early enough that your decisions shape the platform for years.

Who we're looking for

• You've seen and built a lot. You have personally developed and maintained multiple systems from scratch, and you know what trade-offs are involved in building reliable, performant software at speed

• You combine rigorous engineering with ruthless prioritisation to ship efficient and correct systems quickly.

• You're happy to tackle problems without a predefined, clear definition or obvious solution, and are excited to have autonomy to make decisions as you go

• You understand that being a member of a high-performing team requires two things. You contribute your best work and help others contribute their best. You'll always lend a helping hand when needed and level up those around you

Experience requirements

• Fluency in at least one high level (Python, Typescript), and one imperative statically typed (Rust, C++, Java, Go, or other)

• Solid grounding in distributed systems concepts (databases, replication, partitioning, queuing, caching, consistency) and how they behave under load

• Deep understanding of CS fundamentals, data structures and algorithms

• Experience owning services in production and improving quality through code reviews, testing, rollout and monitoring

Why Encord

• Competitive salary and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup

• Clear, accelerated growth opportunities as the company scales rapidly

• Strong in-person culture: 4 days/week

• Daily team lunches & dinners

• Annual learning & development budget

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage

• US employees: 18 paid vacation days plus US public holidays

• UK employees: 25 paid vacation days plus UK public holidays

• Frequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe

• Bi-annual company offsites & monthly socials

Operating principles

High agency

You see something broken, you fix it or find the person who can. We celebrate the people who solve 90% of a problem before anyone asks.

Build with care & urgency

We bear-hug the customer. Former founders and people from fast-moving, high-stakes environments thrive here.

Self-aware & hungry

We stay warm, self-aware, and genuinely hungry. We elevate our peers, and ego doesn't last long.

Invent in real time

We move toward the ambiguity. We’re pragmatic, resourceful, energized by the fact that there's no playbook.

If you're looking to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who push you to be better, we'd love to meet you.