# Software Engineer, Platform, Tinker

**Company:** [Thinking Machines Lab](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/thinking-machines-lab)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA, New York, NY
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $350k – $475k/yr
**Experience:** 0+ years
**Skills:** Python, Rust, RBAC, OAuth, SAML, SSO, SCIM, Metronome, Event-Driven Architectures, Stream Processing
**Posted:** 2026-04-27

> Builds platform systems for AI fine-tuning API including billing, metering, authorization (RBAC/OAuth), organizations/teams, data exports, and audit logging. Requires backend proficiency in Python/Rust and experience in billing, access control, or multi-tenant systems; bachelor's or equivalent.

## Job Description

## What You’ll Do

- Design the authorization layer across all products: RBAC, API key scoping, organization hierarchies, and permission boundaries.
- Own billing infrastructure end to end, including usage metering and aggregation, plan management, payment processing, invoicing, and revenue recognition support.
- Build and evolve the organizations and teams model: seat management, SSO/SAML, workspace isolation, and invite flows.
- Implement data export and deletion pipelines that meet enterprise compliance and data residency requirements.
- Build audit logging so customers and internal teams have clear visibility into who did what, when.

## Skills and Qualifications

**Minimum qualifications:**
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in computer science, engineering, or similar.
- Proficiency in at least one backend language (we use **Python** or **Rust**).
- Experience with at least one of: billing/payments infrastructure, identity and access control (RBAC/ABAC, **OAuth**, **SAML**), or multi-tenant platform systems.
- Thrive in a highly collaborative environment involving many, different cross-functional partners and subject matter experts.
- A bias for action with a mindset to take initiative to work across different stacks and different teams where you spot the opportunity to make sure something ships.

**Preferred qualifications:**
- 4+ years building backend systems in production.
- Experience building billing or metering systems at scale (**Metronome** pipelines, usage-based pricing, invoicing pipelines).
- Familiarity with enterprise-readiness patterns: **SSO/SCIM** provisioning, audit trails, data residency, custom contracts, role hierarchies.
- Strong opinions on building correct financial systems — idempotency, exactly-once semantics, reconciliation.
- Experience with event-driven architectures or stream processing for usage metering.
- Background in security engineering or a strong security mindset (least-privilege design, secure defaults, threat modeling).
- Prior work at an AI/ML company, developer tools company, or API-first platform.

## Compensation

Depending on background, skills and experience, the expected annual salary range for this position is **$350,000 - $475,000 USD**.

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