Software Engineer, Backend/Applied ML (Safety & Integrity)

The role

You will design, develop, and scale backend systems and apply machine learning to address integrity and safety challenges. This role involves architecting solutions for human-to-AI interaction and providing technical leadership for the platform's trustworthiness.

What you will do

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend systems for integrity and safety features.
• Lead technical design and implementation of solutions for detecting and mitigating integrity risks.
• Develop and deploy machine learning models for content classification, anomaly detection, and risk scoring.
• Collaborate with product managers, data scientists, AI researchers, security teams, and operations.
• Drive the long-term technical vision and roadmap for backend integrity systems and applied ML.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to other engineers.
• Implement best practices in software engineering, distributed systems, and ML model development.
• Analyze and improve performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of integrity platforms and ML models.
• Stay current on emerging threats and advancements in backend engineering and Generative AI safety.

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong emphasis on backend systems development.
• Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Proven track record of designing, building, and operating complex, large-scale, and highly available distributed systems.
• Expertise in one or more backend programming languages such as Python, Go, Java, or C++.
• Hands-on experience in applying machine learning techniques to solve real-world problems, specifically with demonstrable experience in addressing integrity, trust, or safety challenges.
• Solid understanding of the machine learning lifecycle, including data gathering, cleaning, feature engineering, model selection, training, validation, A/B testing, deployment, and operational monitori
• Exceptional problem-solving abilities.
• Proven ability to work in a fast-paced development environment and deliver timely results.
• Strong communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills.

Nice to have

• You care deeply about Trust & Safety and see it as a value-add to the business
• Prior experience in a dedicated Trust & Safety, Integrity, or Risk engineering team.
• Contributions to open-source projects or publications in relevant fields.
• Experience leading large, cross-cutting technical projects.

About the company

Character.AI empowers people to connect, learn and tell stories through interactive entertainment. The platform has over 20 million monthly visitors and achieved unicorn status within two years.