Senior Software Engineer - Backend & Machine Learning

Raft, an intelligent logistics platform, is revolutionizing the freight and customs industry through automation and advanced technologies. As a fast-scaling, UK-based tech company with global reach, we're pioneering solutions that empower freight forwarders and customs brokers to operate at new levels of efficiency and precision. Fueled by our Series B funding from renowned investors, we're poised for major growth and innovation.

As a Senior Engineer with a focus on all things AI at Raft, you'll be instrumental in shaping the architecture and capabilities of our platform to support features at the cutting-edge powered by AI. This is not a traditional engineering role - it's a high-impact opportunity to work with the cutting edge of AI and agents in a real product setting. You will be responsible for designing scalable and innovative AI solutions and making them work at an enterprise scale. This role is also unique since you will get exposure to our current platform and customers alongside being involved in an exciting greenfield project, where you will be able to build an AI native product from scratch.

In addition to building advanced software, you'll play a strategic role in driving technical decision-making and mentoring our growing engineering team. This role is for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, ambitious environment and is ready to make an outsized impact on a product used across the globe.

What You'll Do:

• Design and implement AI-powered features using LLMs, MCP and other advanced technologies
• Develop agentic AI systems that can autonomously perform complex tasks with minimal human supervision
• Create robust, scalable, and maintainable code that adheres to engineering best practices
• Integrate LLM and AI models into the Raft platform to power new and innovative features.
• Work with our existing code base and make improvements, across our existing models, code and architecture. 
• Build and optimize ML pipelines, models, and infrastructure for production environments
• Drive the evolution of platform features that require complex engineering solutions powered by AI/ML.
• Implement rigorous testing methodologies for AI systems, including modern evals.
• Collaborate with product managers, UX designers, and customers to understand pain points and translate them into effective technical solutions
• Mentor junior engineers and foster a culture of innovation and continuous learning
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving AI landscape and recommend strategic technology adoption

• Brings 5+ years of hands-on experience in software development with a strong focus on Python, supplemented by experience in other programming languages.
• Proven experience designing and implementing solutions with LLMs like GPT-4, Claude, or open-source models
• Experience with prompt engineering and LLM fine-tuning techniques
• Experience building production-ready AI systems that scale reliably in enterprise environments
• Has deep expertise in designing and maintaining databases, vector stores, etc. and understands the latest trends in database technology, particularly relevant to LLM and AI applications.
• Is proficient with FastAPI/Starlette and can demonstrate experience in building scalable APIs with Python for AI/ML applications.
• Has a solid track record in cloud native environments and understands how to architect and implement software libraries that thrive in distributed, multi-cloud settings.
• Can design and implement a sophisticated logging, monitoring, and alerting infrastructure to ensure high availability and quick troubleshooting of AI/ML systems.
• Understands and implements best practices in security and data privacy, with a proven ability to secure complex data flows, particularly for LLM/AI applications.
• Has extensive experience with containerised tools like Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes, Helm, and understands the intricacies of deploying these in production, specifically for LLM/AI workloads.
• Some experience with agentic AI architectures and multi-agent systems is beneficial.
• Demonstrated ability to balance technical excellence with business requirements and time constraints

Apply Because You Want to...

• Join a company on the leading edge of logistics technology, competing with industry giants while leveraging cutting-edge AI/ML and backend engineering.
• Work in a product-driven environment where your contributions shape real-world solutions for a global customer base.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across industries and continents, gaining unparalleled exposure to the logistics and automation sectors.
• Thrive in a high-energy, growth-focused environment that pushes you to expand your technical and strategic skill sets.
• Be part of a diverse, inclusive, and multi-cultural team where innovation and continuous improvement are celebrated.