Winston Artory Group · 1 month ago
Staff Backend Software Engineer
United States
Full-time
Remote
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
7+ years expWinston Artory Group is transforming how art and collectibles are valued, managed, and traded through innovative technologies like AI and blockchain. They are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to lead the backend architecture, mentor future engineers, and collaborate closely with product and engineering leadership to build scalable systems that drive their next-generation platform.
ArtInformation Technology
Responsibilities
Own the entire backend architecture from day one—make the critical decisions on frameworks, databases, infrastructure, and patterns
Define technical standards and best practices for code quality, testing, documentation, and deployment
Lead system design for complex problems involving data ingestion, LLM orchestration, and real-time analytics
Mentor and guide future backend engineers as the team grows (you'll likely hire and lead 2-3 backend engineers in your first year)
Evaluate and adopt new technologies that improve velocity, reliability, or capabilities
Build and scale core backend systems to ingest, clean, and serve structured data at scale
Design clean, performant APIs to power our client portal, data tools, and internal services
Integrate and orchestrate LLM APIs (e.g. OpenAI, Claude, open-source models) for use in appraisal automation, data extraction, and insight generation
Architect event-driven systems and asynchronous pipelines (queues, pub/sub) for reliability and scale
Own our infrastructure including CI/CD, observability, monitoring, and IaC (Terraform, AWS)
Co-own technical vision with Head of Engineering: collaborate daily on architecture, technical roadmap, and engineering standards
Partner closely with CPO and product team to shape roadmap based on technical feasibility and effort
Collaborate with data and frontend engineers to define APIs, contracts, and integration patterns
Work with company leadership (Head of Engineering, CPO, President) on technical strategy, hiring, and long-term platform vision
Communicate technical decisions clearly to non-technical stakeholders
Qualification
Required
Education: B.S. in Computer Science or equivalent
Experience: 7+ years of backend engineering experience with at least 2+ years in a technical lead, staff, or principal role at a high-growth startup or product company
Leadership: Proven track record of mentoring engineers, leading technical initiatives, and making architectural decisions that scale
Technical Skills: Expert in Python with deep understanding of performance, concurrency, and design patterns
Strong database expertise (PostgreSQL or similar) including query optimization, schema design, and data modeling
Hands-on experience with LLM/AI integration in production systems—you've shipped features using OpenAI, Anthropic, or open-source models
Deep knowledge of distributed systems including event-driven architectures, message queues, and async patterns (Celery, Kafka, SQS, etc.)
Production experience with AWS (or GCP/Azure) including compute, storage, networking, and managed services
Strong DevOps fundamentals: Docker, Kubernetes/ECS, Terraform, CI/CD, monitoring/observability
Data engineering fluency: ETL/ELT patterns, data lakes vs. warehouses, pipeline orchestration
Mindset: You balance pragmatism with technical excellence—you know when to move fast and when to invest in infrastructure
You have a bias toward simplicity and can articulate tradeoffs clearly
You're excited about AI tooling and actively use tools like Cursor, Claude, or Copilot to increase velocity
You thrive in ambiguity and can chart technical direction with incomplete information
Preferred
Experience building 0→1 products at early-stage startups (seed through Series B)
Prior tech lead or staff engineer experience at a Series A+ company
Experience with ML/AI model deployment and managing inference costs/latency
Familiarity with data warehousing (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift) and analytics tools
Domain knowledge in art, collectibles, fintech, or fragmented asset classes
Experience hiring and building teams (you'll be involved in hiring future backend engineers)
Ability to occasionally travel to our NYC office
Benefits
Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick days, and holidays
Paid parental leave (maternity, paternity, adoption, leave)
Paid volunteer days to encourage community involvement
Collaborative, innovative, and inclusive company culture
Employee recognition and appreciation programs
Team-building activities and social events
Transparent communication and feedback channels
Discretionary performance-based bonuses
Equity option grants of company shares, offering alignment with company success
Comprehensive health insurance (medical, dental, and vision) with employees covered 100%
On-site in our NY HQ fitness center and sauna
Generous leave policies, including bereavement and reproductive loss leave
Opportunities for continuous learning and training
Mentorship programs and leadership development initiatives
401(k)
Life insurance and disability coverage
Snacks in the office
Company
Winston Artory Group
Winston Artory Group is the nation's leading independent art appraisal and art advisory firm, with offices in NY, MA, DC, NC, FL, TX, CO, CA, as well as representation in three locations overseas.
11-50 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageRecent News
2025-10-09
2025-08-11
Company data provided by crunchbase