C++ Backend Engineer - AI Data Platforms

About The Role

What if your systems programming expertise could directly shape the infrastructure powering the world's most advanced AI models? We're looking for a Senior C++ Engineer to design and build the high-performance data pipelines, annotation tooling, and evaluation systems that leading AI labs depend on to train and improve next-generation models.

This is a fully remote, flexible contract role for a seasoned C++ engineer who thrives on performance-critical systems and wants their work to have real, lasting impact on the AI landscape.

• Organization: Alignerr
• Type: Hourly Contract
• Location: Remote
• Commitment: 20--40 hours/week

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and optimize high-performance C++ systems that power AI data pipelines and model evaluation workflows
• Develop backend services and full-stack tooling supporting large-scale data annotation, validation, and quality control
• Improve reliability, safety, and throughput across existing production C++ codebases
• Identify and resolve bottlenecks, edge cases, and failure modes in complex distributed systems
• Collaborate closely with data, research, and engineering teams to accelerate model training and evaluation
• Participate in synchronous design reviews and contribute to architectural decisions that shape the platform

Who You Are

• Native or fluent English speaker with clear written and verbal communication skills
• 5+ years of professional experience writing production-grade C++
• Strong background in asynchronous network programming --- event loops, RPC frameworks, and high-performance microservices
• Experienced with high-throughput databases or message queues
• Full-stack developer mindset with a deep systems programming foundation
• Able to commit 20--40 hours per week with consistency and reliability

Nice to Have

• Prior experience with data annotation platforms, data quality systems, or model evaluation infrastructure
• Familiarity with AI/ML workflows, model training pipelines, or benchmarking systems
• Experience with distributed systems architecture or internal developer tooling

Why Join Us

• Work on real production systems for leading AI research labs --- not toy projects
• Fully remote and async-friendly --- work from wherever you do your best work
• Flexible contract hours that fit around your life and other commitments
• Contribute to infrastructure that directly shapes how the next generation of AI models is built and evaluated
• Potential for ongoing work and contract extension as projects grow and evolve