Founding Backend Engineer

Outbound helps travelers turn a loose trip idea into a plan they can actually use: where to stay, what to do each day, what is still undecided, and what changes when plans shift.

The systems behind the app have to make that feel dependable.

We are hiring a Founding Backend Engineer to own the services that support trip planning, saved itineraries, accounts, subscriptions, notifications, and graceful recovery when something fails.

You will work closely with mobile and product so the app can stay simple while the hard parts are handled well.

The challenge is not only connecting to AI models. It is building production systems that turn suggestions into clear, saved, editable trip plans.

What you'll do

• 1. Trip planning systems
• Build and improve the services that power trip creation, saved itineraries, activity details, trip progress, and updates when plans change.
• Make trip plans useful after the first response: saved, editable, easy to revisit, and clear enough for the app to show with confidence.
• Model trips in a way that supports real planning: undecided details, changed plans, confirmed activities, prices, locations, notes, and practical tips.
• 2. Infrastructure and reliability
• Own the reliability of production services, including errors, alerts, background work, and cost-aware AI usage.
• Improve authentication, account access, subscription access, notifications, storage, and other systems the product depends on.
• Give the team enough visibility to understand issues quickly without exposing behind-the-scenes details to travelers.
• 3. Product integration
• Shape the services around the product moments travelers actually use: creating a trip, reviewing an itinerary, returning later, and changing details.
• Partner with mobile on account access, paid features, notifications, and trip updates so the app feels consistent from end to end.
• Make practical founding-engineer tradeoffs: ship what is needed now, but leave the product easier to improve next month.
• What good looks like
• A traveler can start a trip, get a useful plan, leave the app, and come back later without losing the important details.
• When trip planning or payment-related moments fail, the product recovers clearly instead of leaving the app in a confusing place.
• The mobile app can move quickly because the services are predictable, documented where needed, and shaped around real user flows.
• The product stays reliable as usage grows because errors are visible, owned, and fixed quickly.

What we're looking for

• 5+ years building production backend systems, ideally in a small team where ownership is broad.
• Strong judgment around API design, data modeling, background jobs, persistence, reliability, and observability.
• Comfort with Type Script/Node, serverless or cloud infrastructure, and the tradeoffs of shipping early production systems.
• Experience turning AI or automation output into product features people can review, edit, and rely on.
• You care about the details that make mobile apps feel trustworthy: saved trips, clear errors, access control, and information that is still there when someone comes back later.
• You communicate clearly with product and mobile collaborators and can explain what happened, what is likely, and what still needs investigation.
• Nice to have
• Experience with AWS Lambda, API Gateway, Dynamo DB, S3, CDK, queues, or event-driven architectures.
• Experience with Open AI or LLM-backed product systems, structured outputs, retrieval, tool use, or evaluation.
• Experience with travel, maps, recommendations, subscriptions, payments, or consumer mobile products.
• Own core product systems early, while the technical foundations are still being shaped.
• Work on AI-assisted planning as a real product problem: saved trips, reliability, edits, payments, and recovery.
• Join a small team where backend decisions directly affect what travelers experience in the app.
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