Senior Software Engineer, Backend

Department: Platform Engineering & Infrastructure

Location: New York

Compensation: $180K – $250K • Offers Equity

Employment Type: FullTime

About Mecka AI

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.
We design and operate global systems for data capture, data labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs and robotics companies to train and validate humanoid and embodied AI systems.

We work closely with frontier robotics teams to bridge real-world data, simulation, learning-based systems, and deployed hardware.

About Mecka AI

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.

We partner with leading AI labs and robotics companies to deliver high-quality, real-world datasets used to train, evaluate, and deploy robotic systems — where model performance is dictated by data quality.

The Role

We are hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to build the systems that ingest, process, store, and serve petabyte-scale video and sensor data.

This is a true senior role. You will own architecture and reliability for production services that operate at extreme scale: heavy cloud networking, distributed GPU compute (thousands of GPUs), millions of GPU-hours, and massive video pipelines.

Ideal background: backend systems for video services (e.g., YouTube, Twitch, Netflix, TikTok, video ads/streaming, CDN/edge video, large-scale media processing).

What You’ll Work On

Video + Data Platform Backend

• Design and build high-throughput services for upload/ingest, processing, indexing, retrieval, and access control.

• Build APIs and internal primitives that make large datasets usable for research, labeling, QA, and model training.

Scale, Reliability, and Quality

• Own service quality end-to-end: correctness, latency, uptime, capacity planning, and cost.

• Build observability (metrics/logs/tracing), incident response, and operational tooling that prevents recurring failures.

Distributed Compute + Networking

• Build systems that coordinate large jobs across cloud infrastructure and GPU fleets.

• Make data movement reliable and fast: storage I/O, network throughput, queuing, retries, idempotency, and backpressure.

Who You Are

Required Background

• 7+ years of backend/software engineering experience (or equivalent impact).

• Strong system design fundamentals and proven experience operating production systems.

• Excellent debugging and operational judgment (you can find the root cause, not just patch symptoms).

Strong Signals

• You have built backend systems for video/media at scale (streaming, transcoding, processing, storage, CDN/edge, ingestion, metadata/search).

• You think in terms of failure modes, invariants, and clean interfaces.

• You write maintainable systems with crisp docs and strong ownership.

Why This Role

• Build the backend that powers petabyte-scale robotics datasets and the training pipelines that depend on them.

• Operate at a scale that forces great engineering: data volume, networking, reliability, and compute orchestration.

• High ownership and direct impact across product, operations, and research.

Inclusive Hiring at Mecka

We are committed to creating an inclusive and supportive candidate experience. Should you require any accommodation whatsoever during the interview process, please inform us without any hesitation. Mecka is dedicated to ensuring equal treatment and opportunity in all phases of recruitment, selection, and employment, in compliance with employment law. We do not discriminate based on gender, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other protected category. Mecka is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, fostering a culture of inclusivity and maintaining a work environment that is free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

Mecka uses artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly to support administrative and efficiency-focused aspects of our recruitment process. This includes activities such as drafting job descriptions, generating interview questions, note-taking and recordings, and supporting sourcing and scheduling workflows. All candidate evaluations, interviews, and hiring decisions are made by members of the Mecka team. While AI tools may assist with screening and assessment, they do not replace human judgment in selection decisions. Our use of AI is intended to streamline routine tasks, improve consistency, and enhance the overall candidate experience. We are committed to upholding principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability in all hiring activities. Mecka regularly reviews its recruitment practices to mitigate bias and to ensure alignment with applicable laws and evolving best practices.