Full Stack Backend Engineer

About SmartAsset:

SmartAsset is a leading online destination for consumer-focused financial information and advice. Our mission is to empower individuals to make smart financial decisions, reaching an estimated 59 million people monthly (as of January 2025) through educational content, personalized calculators, and tools. We also operate the SmartAsset Advisor Marketing Platform (AMP), connecting consumers with fiduciary financial advisors.

SmartAsset has been recognized on the Inc. 5000 list (#2574 in 2023) and the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ list (#250 in 2022). We are also ranked on Y Combinator’s list of Top 100 Companies. In 2021, we successfully closed a $110 million Series D funding round, valuing the company at over $1 billion.

*Other than application and licensing fees, SmartAsset did not provide compensation for the aforementioned awards.

About the Team:

The Machine Learning Engineering team is responsible for designing, building, and integrating the core platform that enables cutting-edge capabilities for financial advisors, including features powered by generative AI. Our engineers are dedicated to continuously evolving this platform, fostering groundbreaking applications and features that help financial professionals connect with clients and grow their businesses.

About the Job:

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Full Stack Backend Engineer to join our growing team. In this role, you will be pivotal in crafting and scaling foundational backend systems, with a significant focus on our emerging GenAI initiatives. You will engage in the entire software development lifecycle, from architectural design to deployment and ongoing operations. You will contribute substantially to our core infrastructure and data strategies, collaborating closely with cross-functional partners such as LLM Engineers, Product Owners, and Data Scientists to bring our vision to fruition.

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain high-performance, scalable, and secure backend services, primarily using Python and frameworks like FastAPI.
• Translate ambiguous business and technical requirements into concrete software designs and actionable tasks for cross-functional teams.
• Work with OLTP databases, including schema design, migration strategies, and performance optimization.
• Integrate SmartAsset services with internal and external APIs, including third-party platforms and existing AWS infrastructure.
• Ensure secure ingress and egress of data within our private network environments.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of our CI/CD pipelines to ensure continual improvements to our cycle time.
• Manage and optimize AWS services, including IAM roles and policies.
• Gain a deep understanding of how our Python applications integrate with our Kubernetes (EKS) and future ECS-based infrastructure.
• Operate and maintain production applications at scale, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability.
• Design and implement data collection pipelines specifically for Large Language Models (LLMs).
• Contribute to shared data architecture and data governance practices to ensure the persistence of structured data suitable for analytics and model training.
• Explore, integrate, and tune various LLM-related technologies, such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, and address potential scaling challenges.
• Investigate and implement agentic technologies, such as tool calling frameworks (e.g., AutoGen), to enhance LLM capabilities.
• Rapidly prototype user interfaces for internal tools and data exploration, leveraging frameworks like Streamlit, Gradio, or other similar tools that facilitate quick iteration and integration without persistent websockets.

Skills/Experience:

• Proven experience as a Backend Engineer with a strong focus on Python development.
• Experience with cloud platforms, specifically AWS, including IAM, EKS/ECS, and other core services.
• Experience operating...