Software Engineer, Backend (Senior - Principal)

About Lanai

We believe we are in the midst of a 4th industrial revolution and AI is changing everything. Like all revolutions, this one has tremendous promise and comes with quite a lot of chaos.  With a forecasted explosion of different AI applications to support enterprises, the question is: how do leaders unlock the potential of AI for their specific goals and how do people working in companies evolve together with the technology?  This is where Lanai comes in.

Lanai is built for large organizations looking to “Lean into AI” in a thoughtful way. Lanai will offer a software platform that helps companies adopt AI-based models and applications in a productive, cost-effective, and secure manner. Lanai’s co-founders are Lexi Reese (former COO of Gusto and VP of Google) and Steve Herrod (former CTO of VMware).  Steve incubated the concept with a talented team at Juxtapose earlier this year and Lexi is scaling the business with a talented team that shares deep technical and commercial expertise and diverse lived experiences. Lanai has received substantive funding from top-tier VC firms and will release its first product later this year.

About the Team

At Lanai, we are passionate builders, relentless customer champions, and lifelong learners who believe we do our best work when we have a team that represents the diversity of the customers we serve and everyone feels welcome, safe, valued and championed. We are harnessing the power of state-of-the-art AI tools to build our platform, and we are committed to taming the complexity needed to help others benefit from all that these tools have to offer.

We're a tight-knit group of curious engineers who love turning complex problems into solutions that make a real difference for our users. We’re leveraging the most modern development tools and practices to ensure a productive and fun environment where everyone is inspired to do their best work. And we don't just build 'good enough' – we obsess over the details that create genuinely delightful experiences. We’re building a thoughtful environment where curiosity thrives and bringing your authentic selves to everything is a given.

What You’ll Do

• Own the design and implementation of backend architecture

• Ship end-to-end product features

• Collaborate with other engineers to scope product requirements and write technical specifications

• Be results-driven to consistently deliver software improvements to our users

• Produce high-quality, production-ready, readable, maintainable code

• Lend your technical expertise to unblock and invest in other engineers on your team

What You Bring 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

• 4+ years of software engineering experience, preferably at least 1 year at a seed, Series A, or Series B company

• Deep knowledge in data structures, algorithms, and building highly performant and scalable systems

• Familiarity with SQL or NoSQL databases like Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB.

• Experience in Python or Golang and deep knowledge of REST APIs, SaaS and microservices architecture

  • Our current stack is AWS, EKS, ReactJS, NestJS, GraphQL, Postgres, Hashicorp Vault, Python, Golang, AWS Sagemaker

• A self starter owner’s mentality with an unquenchable desire to learn

• Sharp at problem solving, critical thinking, and systems thinking

• Proactive communicator, both verbal and written, around technical decisions and project deadlines

• Biased towards action and speed of delivery

Working Environment

Lanai is based in Palo Alto and we co-create in our office, together, most of the time. We have a regular in-office cadence for team connection and brainstorming sessions, with the flexibility for remote work the rest of the time. We use the best collaboration tools, schedule regular offsites, and plan for team bonding experiences.

What We Offer

• $150,000-$225,000 annual base salary (based on level and experience) with significant equity options

• Health, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k) plan

• Unlimited PTO

• Annual learning & development and te