About the Role

We're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer who thrives in complexity and ships with confidence. You'll be the person who architects the systems behind Lilo's AI-powered platform, building robust APIs, designing scalable data models, and integrating intelligent LLM-driven features that make procurement genuinely smart. This is a high-ownership, high-autonomy role for someone who doesn't wait to be told what to do. If you love solving hard problems, move fast without breaking things, and get a kick out of seeing your work in production, you'll fit right in.

About Lilo

Lilo is rebuilding procurement for Commercial Real Estate using AI. Hotels and CRE operators still manage procurement with emails, calls, spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge. Lilo replaces that chaos with a single AI-powered platform that automates purchasing, vendor management, invoice processing, and price optimization. We work with major hotel management companies and staple hotel brands in the US, and we're on an explosive growth path. Top performers have outsized impact and ownership.

What You'll Do

Own the backend, end to end

• Design and build scalable Node.js APIs and services on top of MongoDB, with external API integrations where needed.
• Take features from concept to production with minimal handholding — you define the approach, you execute it.

Navigate the infrastructure with confidence

• Solid working knowledge of AWS services, Kubernetes-based infrastructure, and CI/CD pipelines, enough to deploy, debug, and optimize without needing a DevOps babysitter.
• Comfortable reading and contributing to infrastructure configs, understanding how your code runs in production, and flagging risks before they become incidents.

Tackle the hard stuff

• Dig into complex data flows, async processing, and system design challenges with curiosity, not dread.
• Propose and implement architectural improvements as the product scales.

Make AI a first-class citizen

• Integrate LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, or similar) into core product workflows, prompt engineering, context management, output parsing, the works.
• Build the infrastructure that makes our AI features reliable, observable, and fast.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of backend experience with strong Node.js and MongoDB depth (full MERN stack familiarity is a plus).
• Enough DevOps knowledge to own your deployments: Docker, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, environment configs.
• A delivery mindset — you measure yourself by what ships, not what's planned.
• Self-directed and proactive: you identify problems, propose solutions, and move without waiting for permission.
• Real experience integrating and working with LLMs in production — not just calling an API, but building thoughtful, resilient AI features.

Bonus Points

• Experience with event-driven architectures, queues, or real-time systems.
• Background in B2B SaaS or marketplace platforms.
• Prior startup experience — you know what it means to build something from scratch under pressure.

Why You'll Love It

• Hard problems that actually matter. Procurement is broken at scale, and you're building the fix
• Work directly with founders and leadership, not buried in a big eng org
• A team that values craftsmanship, honest feedback, and getting things done over performative busyness
• A team that respects craft, values clarity, and moves fast with purpose.

Salary

• $4,000 – $5,000 USD/month gross

Work Arrangement

• Hybrid: 3x2