Founding Systems Engineer

Role

Ionworks is hiring a Founding Systems Engineer to be the first dedicated backend and systems hire. You will own the architectural backbone of a battery simulation and optimization platform, build reliable APIs, optimize performance across the stack, and design robust data and job systems to support large-scale numerical simulation workflows.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and evolve backend services using FastAPI, async Python, and Supabase or Postgres.
• Design clear, stable API contracts for simulation, optimization, and data workflows.
• Architect schemas, transactions, indexing strategies, and migrations for evolving scientific workloads.
• Diagnose and optimize performance end-to-end: query plans, network latency, concurrency, and resource limits.
• Build resilient async job flows for running and tracking simulation pipelines, including distributed or queued workloads.
• Implement observability across the backend: tracing, logging, metrics, error handling, and recovery strategies.
• Use LLMs and coding agents to accelerate work while maintaining human review, tests, and code quality.
• Collaborate with founders and compute engineers to shape system architecture, engineering culture, and technical standards.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience building production backend systems in Python (FastAPI, Flask, or similar).
• Strong SQL and Postgres experience, including schema design, query optimization, and migrations.
• Experience debugging complex systems: async concurrency, database connection pools, distributed or multi-service flows.
• Familiarity with cloud environments (for example AWS, GCP, Porter), Docker, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Comfortable owning systems that serve real users: correctness, performance, observability, and security.
• Experience using LLM tools in a supervised, production-focused way (helpers/agents you supervise).
• Clear communication and ability to work autonomously in an early-stage, fast-moving environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience with distributed or parallel systems such as Celery, Ray, Dask, or HPC queues.
• Background in numerical computing, scientific Python, or simulation workflows.
• Experience with multi-tenant architectures and dataset isolation strategies (including row-level security).
• Familiarity with TypeScript or React and building well-defined API contracts for frontends.
• Interest in energy storage, electrification, or engineering tooling.
• Contributions to open-source projects, especially PyBaMM or scientific/infrastructure tooling.

Vibe Engineering

• Use LLMs and coding agents to speed up work while retaining full responsibility for architecture, quality, and maintainability.
• Rely on strong engineering practices (tests, clear plans, documentation, CI/linting, manual QA) and treat agents as fast but literal collaborators.

Benefits

• Unlimited PTO
• 401(k) plan with employer match
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Remote-first work environment
• Paid parental leave
• Home office and hardware budget
• Early ownership and meaningful equity