Founding Backend Engineer

About mā

mā is building the first operating system that understands your life as a field. We unify body, mind, and meaning into a single living signal, and use it to guide people toward coherence.

Our system senses, thinks, and guides in real time, combining LLMs, behavior modeling, and ambient hardware into one generative life interface. We’re not optimizing dashboards. We’re designing a new kind of intelligence: spiritual silicon, with real-world precision.

We’re a tight team based in San Francisco, working in person with full clarity and conviction. Backed by investors who bet on outlier ideas, we’ve locked in the product vision, GTM strategy, and early runway. Now we’re engineering the tech that can reshape how humans live.

About the role

We’re looking for a founding backend engineer to build the systems that power mā’s generative interface. You’ll architect the core infrastructure, integrate diverse signal inputs, and work closely with our AI and design teams to turn semantic models into real-world interaction.

This isn’t a dev shop job. You’ll be building the backend of a new kind of OS—one that learns, adapts, and guides people in real time.

You’ll own the full stack of backend logic: from ingesting and shaping biometric and behavioral data, to serving dynamic guidance, to powering mā’s integrated marketplace—where insights become action through curated products, services, and protocols.

You’ll be our first backend hire, working directly with the founder and AI engineer. You’ll help vet future hires and set the technical foundation for scale.

From raw signal to real-world action. You’ll architect the bridge.

What you’ll do

• Design and build the core data infrastructure powering mā’s inference engine

• Architect clean, scalable APIs to serve AI inference, mobile clients, and future integrations

• Build and scale the backend for mā’s integrated marketplace—turning narrative outputs into real-world actions (products, services, protocols)

• Handle ingestion and normalization of biometric, behavioral, and journaling inputs

• Collaborate with AI, product, and hardware to ensure real-time performance and coherent system behavior

• Own system-level concerns: latency, cost, observability, and resilience

What we’re looking for

• Strong backend engineering experience (7+ years preferred), ideally across early-stage systems

• Proven ability to design and scale clean APIs and data pipelines

• Comfort working across data structures, infra, and real-time constraints

• Bonus: experience with health data, LLM backends, or agentic interfaces

• High agency, high clarity, low ego—you move like a founder

You’ll thrive here if you

• Think in systems, not just in APIs

• Want to work across disciplines—AI, design, health, and behavior

• Crave in-person momentum and fast feedback loops

• See engineering not as implementation, but as interface between vision and reality

(Full-time) Employee Benefits:

• 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision

• 401(k) matching

• Real compensation: salary + meaningful equity

• No startup theatre. Just clarity and conviction

• We cover anything that expands your craft—books, tools, courses, retreats, mentors. No cap.