Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This Senior/Staff Backend Engineer role stands out in SaaS because it sits at the intersection of platform engineering and enterprise AI delivery. The work is framed around an AI workspace product and the operational realities of deploying model driven capabilities into customer environments where security, privacy, and control are central. That combination is increasingly common across modern SaaS, particularly as vendors move from experimentation to dependable, governed AI features.
From a career perspective, the role offers exposure to the kinds of constraints that shape durable SaaS platforms: stringent deployment mechanisms, performance in low resource environments, and backend systems that must support sensitive data access patterns. Experience productionizing frontier techniques alongside researchers also builds a useful bridge between applied ML and product engineering, a pairing that translates well across AI enabled SaaS categories.
This position is best suited to engineers who enjoy shipping pragmatic backend software while navigating tradeoffs in tooling, libraries, and infrastructure choices. It will fit someone comfortable operating beyond a narrow service boundary, collaborating across functions, and treating reliability and security as product requirements rather than afterthoughts.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
Who are we?
Our mission is to scale intelligence to serve humanity. We’re training and deploying frontier models for developers and enterprises who are building AI systems to power magical experiences like content generation, semantic search, RAG, and agents. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI.
We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. We like to work hard and move fast to do what’s best for our customers.
Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are passionate about their craft. Each person is one of the best in the world at what they do. We believe that a diverse range of perspectives is a requirement for building great products.
Join us on our mission and shape the future!
About North:
North is Cohere's cutting-edge AI workspace platform, designed to revolutionize the way enterprises utilize AI. It offers a secure and customizable environment, allowing companies to deploy AI while maintaining control over sensitive data. North integrates seamlessly with existing workflows, providing a trusted platform that connects AI agents with workplace tools and applications.
As a Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, you will:
Build and ship features for North, our AI workspace platform
Develop autonomous agents that talk to sensitive enterprise data
Write and ship minimal code that runs in low-resource environments, and has highly stringent deployment mechanisms
As security and privacy are paramount, you will sometimes need to re-invent the wheel, and won’t be able to use the most popular libraries or tooling
Collaborate with researchers to productionize state-of-the-art models and techniques
You may be a good fit if:
Have shipped (lots of) Python in production
You have built and deployed extremely performant client-side or server-side RAG/agentic applications to millions of users
You have strong coding abilities and are comfortable working across the stack. You’re able to read and understand, and even fix issues outside of the main code base
You’ve worked in both large enterprises and startups
You excel in fast-paced environments and can execute while priorities and objectives are a moving target
If some of the above doesn’t line up perfectly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply!
We value and celebrate diversity and strive to create an inclusive work environment for all. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please submit an Accommodations Request Form, and we will work together to meet your needs.
Full-Time Employees at Cohere enjoy these Perks:
🤝 An open and inclusive culture and work environment
🧑💻 Work closely with a team on the cutting edge of AI research
🍽 Weekly lunch stipend, in-office lunches & snacks
🦷 Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget to take care of your mental health
🐣 100% Parental Leave top-up for up to 6 months
🎨 Personal enrichment benefits towards arts and culture, fitness and well-being, quality time, and workspace improvement
🏙 Remote-flexible, offices in Toronto, New York, San Francisco, London and Paris, as well as a co-working stipend
✈️ 6 weeks of vacation (30 working days!)
