Lead Backend Engineer (Consumer AI)

Key Highlights:

• Position: Lead Backend Engineer
• Location: In Office (Gurgaon)
• Experience: 5-10 years of hands-on experience in scaling backend services. Strong preference to candidates with experience of scaling B2C apps to millions of active users
• CTC Range: Market‑level CTC + meaningful ESOPs (high ownership)
• Important : Apply only if you are ok with high rigor. This role will average 60 hour workweeks with high skin in the game / ESOP / best in class pay. If you are not comfortable going all in, this may not be the right role for you. This role grows into a CTO / Head of Engineering in 2-3 years

About Airblack & Zudo Airblack is India’s largest alternate skilling platform. Our mission is to help the next 100 million people in the workforce get access to meaningful opportunities. With a lean team of under 30 people working at the intersection of

AI and learning , we are on track to cross 100cr in revenue run-rate in FY27. We currently operate in sectors such as content creation, SME skills, beauty, fashion, nutrition, digital & home businesses, impacting over 1M learners every month. Our apps consistently rank in top 10 education apps in India with 1M+ users and 40M+ minutes of learning content being consumed every month. One of our new products, Zudo, is now India’s fastest growing apps in the skilling / content space. Airblack has raised Rs. 100cr+ from marquee investors such as Elevation Capital, Info Edge Ventures, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Blume Founders Fund and Better Capital, and leading angels such as Vidit (Meesho), Kunal (CRED), Deepinder (Zomato), Harshit & Shashank (Razorpay) and so on.

What would you be doing?

• Own end to end development cycle from product conceptualisation with business to shipping the feature to measuring impact
• Setting the roadmap for agentic development cycles
• System architecture and performance for AI chat, personalised learning, AI Voice and multiple features touching 1M+ learners every month
• Mentoring and coaching other engineers

What makes you a suitable candidate? We are assembling some of the smartest and highly ambitious individuals under one roof, to build a consumer-tech company that we can be proud of. This will not be a 9-5 well defined role, so if you're looking for one, you shouldn't consider applying.

• 5-10 years of hands-on experience in backend development, preferably in a fast-paced startup environment
• Proficiency in at least one modern backend language (e.g., Python, Node.js, Go, Java)
• Strong command over databases (both SQL and NoSQL) and caching mechanisms
• Experience with LLMs, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Familiarity with microservices architecture and API design principles
• A knack for writing clean, maintainable, and well-documented code
• Strong problem-solving skills and a never-give-up attitude when debugging complex issues
• A degree in B.Tech Computer Science from top-tier college is preferred

About the Team at Airblack We are a lean team (under 30 members) with a high curiosity quotient and talent density, working at the intersection of Consumer x AI. We like to partner with highly ambitious people who like to set high benchmarks for themselves, and have backed it up with actions in the past.

Perks

• Fast-growth: This role fast-tracks to VP -> CXO in 2-3 years
• High skin in the game: Aggressive ESOP allocations at the onset. We recently concluded our first ESOP buyback, and if the company continues doing well in next 3 years, this promises to be a life-altering opportunity in terms on ESOP liquidity
• Build in one of the highest talent density in consumer-tech: Learn from and work with some of the best peers you can find in a consumer-tech company in NCR.
• Infinite budget for knowledge, upskilling, tech tools & AI tools
• Mentor connect available to the whose and whose of startup ecosystem (check our angel investor list)
• Usuals : Health Insurance cover, flexible leave policy, a free environment to build what you love