Senior Backend Engineer

Responsibilities

• Design and implement core backend systems for Fynn, including the conversational AI layer and personalization engine
• Build LLM-powered workflows and agents, integrating model providers, RAG, and tool-calling into production-grade pipelines
• Own evaluation and quality infrastructure to ensure accuracy, compliance, and privacy for AI responses
• Build systems to detect financial challenges in user profiles and surface tailored, timely next steps
• Integrate with internal services and third-party providers like credit bureaus and financial profiles via robust APIs
• Enhance observability, reliability, and latency management for AI-critical systems

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience with modern backend frameworks and scaling production systems
• Strong systems design skills with experience architecting distributed systems
• Production experience with background job processing systems (Sidekiq, Resque, or similar)
• Solid understanding of database optimization, caching strategies, and performance tuning
• Ability to balance technical excellence with business pragmatism in a high-stakes environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered products (RAG, agentic workflows, prompt engineering, or eval frameworks)
• Experience with AI quality and safety systems, including automated evaluation and guardrails
• Background in fintech, payments, or regulated environments (ACH, card processing, or credit bureau data)
• Experience working within client-server architectures and API contract design
• Proven technical leadership and ability to mentor other engineers

About the Company

Kikoff is a profitable, pre-IPO fintech company on a mission to empower everyone to achieve financial security. We have built a suite of products that help millions of people build credit, access liquidity, and save money. Our AI credit coach, Fynn, serves as the intelligence layer across our entire ecosystem, providing personalized financial guidance and automated debt negotiation.