Backend Engineer (Python, Kubernetes)

About Guidal

Guidal is a next-generation cloud platform in development. It lets teams deploy and run software without managing servers, with security and compliance handled by the platform. People and AI agents can both operate it.

About the role

You will be the first engineer, working directly with the founder. You will build the backend services and the Kubernetes systems that run customer workloads, run them in production after they ship, and help take the product to launch. Architecture decisions are made with you, not handed to you.

This is a software engineering role. You will design and build production software, do the research when a problem needs it, and work at the pace of a company that is about to launch.

What you'll do

• Build backend services and APIs in Python.
• Build the Kubernetes-based systems that provision, run and manage customer workloads.
• Design Postgres schemas, write migrations and tune performance.
• Write tests and keep the CI pipeline healthy.
• Run what you ship: monitoring, reliability and incident response.
• Evaluate new tools, including AI and agent tooling, and recommend what we adopt.
• Take part in product and architecture decisions with the founder.

Required

• Software engineering experience. 2–3 years of professional software development, with Python as your primary language. Python used mainly for scripting or automation does not meet this requirement.
• Early-stage product experience. You have been part of taking a product from zero to users and owned a piece of it end to end.
• API development. You have designed and shipped production REST APIs.
• Kubernetes. You have deployed, debugged and managed workloads on it.
• Postgres. Migrations, indexing and connection pooling in a production system.
• Testing and CI. Unit testing as a habit, and experience keeping a CI/CD pipeline healthy.
• Linux. Comfortable working on servers from the command line.
• System design fundamentals. You can reason about APIs, data, state, failure modes and performance, and explain the trade-offs you made.
• AI development practice. You use modern AI development tools as part of your everyday engineering work: to plan changes, explore unfamiliar code, and move faster on substantial tasks, not only for autocomplete.
• Judgement around AI output. You know AI-generated code is not inherently correct. You review it, find the subtle errors, and stay accountable for the result.
• Automation mindset. You notice repetitive engineering work and replace it with maintainable software.
• Production ownership. You build software that can be tested, observed and operated, and you take responsibility for it after it ships.
• Working style. Comfortable in a fast-paced environment, willing to learn and adopt new technologies, and keen to own the product and launch it.

Preferred

• Observability tooling: Prometheus, Grafana.
• Vector databases, RAG, or agentic AI development.
• Infrastructure development: Ansible, Helm, or similar.
• Experience building developer tools, internal platforms or shared engineering services.
• Experience designing APIs and integrations across systems that evolve independently.
• Familiarity with AI application concepts such as tool use, context management, structured outputs and agent orchestration. Experience with MCP or similar is useful; no particular framework is required.

What success looks like

• First 3 months: shipping production features on the core platform and owning one service end to end.
• 3–6 months: delivering a capability real customers use, and taking part in launch.
• 6–12 months: leading a significant area of the platform from design through production.

What we offer

• Equity: this role is intended to receive a grant of up to 1% of the company under an ESOP scheme the company will adopt within the first six months. Vesting runs from your date of joining. Terms in the offer letter.
• Core ownership of a cloud platform, from first version to launch.

How we hire

Resume review → 45-minute screening call → In-person interview. The position is based in Coimbatore.