AI Engineer

Backend: Node and Python.

Frontend: Next.js and TypeScript (we expect you to be 80+% focussed on backend work, however).

We like static type checking in Python and TypeScript

All infrastructure runs in Kubernetes across a couple of clouds

We use GitHub for code reviews and CI

Consider the questions:

What's the difference between anyio , trio , and asyncio ?

What does the await keyword do in JavaScript?

What is a Kubernetes pod, and how is it different from a container?

How would you manage state when using an LLM to power a conversation?

If you have a solid answer for these—without reference to documentation—then we should chat!

Backend implementation of our "living document" We believe that user interactions with language models should be much deeper than yet more chatbot interfaces. We wrote about our living document approach which is one way in which users can have much richer LLM-powered product experiences. You would work on, curate, extend, and improve the backend part of that technology. This is fascinating and challenging distributed systems work.

We believe that user interactions with language models should be much deeper than yet more chatbot interfaces.

We wrote about our living document approach which is one way in which users can have much richer LLM-powered product experiences.

You would work on, curate, extend, and improve the backend part of that technology. This is fascinating and challenging distributed systems work.

Building Elicit into a product researchers can’t live without We ship useful, exciting features out to users on a weekly basis. Your focus will be on the code which exists between the BFF endpoints and the ML models we use. You will work on a mix of known features / fixes, prototypes to validate ideas, and exploratory projects in between. Our team is small, so we expect you to appreciate the user needs underlying everything you work on. You should be comfortable making decisions and trade-offs that help us fulfill users’ needs best.

We ship useful, exciting features out to users on a weekly basis. Your focus will be on the code which exists between the BFF endpoints and the ML models we use.

You will work on a mix of known features / fixes, prototypes to validate ideas, and exploratory projects in between.

Our team is small, so we expect you to appreciate the user needs underlying everything you work on. You should be comfortable making decisions and trade-offs that help us fulfill users’ needs best.

Keeping Elicit’s bar for quality high You’ll balance shipping features in the short term with building extensible and maintainable systems. You will be responsible for your features in production: they need to be scalable, resilient, and easy to operate. You’ll contribute to discussions around system design, performance evaluation, and architecture.

You’ll balance shipping features in the short term with building extensible and maintainable systems.

You will be responsible for your features in production: they need to be scalable, resilient, and easy to operate.

You’ll contribute to discussions around system design, performance evaluation, and architecture.

You can view sample projects here.

Strong technical aptitude that allows you to move comfortably around our back-end tech stack, with strong computer science fundamentals .

A genuine curiosity and enthusiasm for the capabilities of language models.

A defensive, fault-first mindset .

Above-average communication skills . Elicit is a small, highly-collaborative team, so you’ll frequently be tapped to communicate complex engineering topics with stakeholders across the company.

A sense of joy in what you do. One thing we love about our team at Elicit is that everybody’s a craftsperson who cares deeply about their field.

Start building foundational context Get to know your team, our stack, and the product roadmap. You’ll get to know our company documentation and other supporting resources like Supporting Process, not Outcomes .

Get to know your team, our stack, and the product roadmap.

You’ll get to know our company documentation and other supporting resources like Supporting Process, not Outcomes .

Make your first contribution to Elicit By the end of your first week, you’ll have completed your first Linear issue, have a PR merged into our monorepo, gained understanding of our CI/CD pipeline, and learned about our monitoring and logging tools.

By the end of your first week, you’ll have completed your first Linear issue, have a PR merged into our monorepo, gained understanding of our CI/CD pipeline, and learned about our monitoring and logging tools.

You’ll complete your first multi-issue project As you learn the ropes, you’re able to tackle more impactful projects, with input from domain experts where you need it.

As you learn the ropes, you’re able to tackle more impactful projects, with input from domain experts where you need it.

You’re actively improving the team You’ll have gotten into the swing of contributing to regular team meetings and hack days, and you’ve demoed something you’ve worked on during a team sync. You’ve added some documentation, how-to guides, diagrams, or other resources meant to help us and new hires in the future. You’ve suggested an improvement to our development process.

You’ll have gotten into the swing of contributing to regular team meetings and hack days, and you’ve demoed something you’ve worked on during a team sync.

You’ve added some documentation, how-to guides, diagrams, or other resources meant to help us and new hires in the future.

You’ve suggested an improvement to our development process.

You’re flying solo With the context you’ve gained, you’re able to implement changes independently and you’re comfortable making big, impactful decisions in the course of your work.

With the context you’ve gained, you’re able to implement changes independently and you’re comfortable making big, impactful decisions in the course of your work.

You’ve developed an area of expertise Our engineering team is just a few people, so each person quickly becomes a go-to resource in some area of the tech. Within your first quarter, we expect that there’s a part of Elicit you’ll become the domain expert for that others reach out to for support when working in this area.

Our engineering team is just a few people, so each person quickly becomes a go-to resource in some area of the tech. Within your first quarter, we expect that there’s a part of Elicit you’ll become the domain expert for that others reach out to for support when working in this area.

You actively research and improve the product By the end of your first quarter, you’ll have gotten to know Elicit and our users well. We expect that you’ll have thought about and scoped some user-facing improvements to the product as well as identified technical improvements to implement.

By the end of your first quarter, you’ll have gotten to know Elicit and our users well. We expect that you’ll have thought about and scoped some user-facing improvements to the product as well as identified technical improvements to implement.