Backend Engineer focused on AI Agents, Memory & Context

Stack

Responsibilities

• ▹Build Ask Vantum's chat harness: the code and instructions connecting the model to conversation history, memory, app data, and tools
• ▹Write, test, and refine system prompts, keeping model behavior consistent
• ▹Context management: decide what the model needs each turn, what to retrieve, and what to leave out
• ▹Memory: separate lasting preferences from temporary instructions, handle corrections and deletions
• ▹Queries and retrieval: pull relevant tasks, goals, calendar entries, notes, and documents, choosing the right retrieval approach
• ▹Build tool execution: validate inputs, enforce permissions, and handle failures without creating duplicate work
• ▹Reliability and evaluation: trace and reproduce bad responses, verify fixes, monitor response quality, latency, and cost

Requirements

• ▹Strong backend fundamentals and skill at getting reliable, useful behavior from language models
• ▹Ability to write precise system prompts and explain how instructions, examples, tool descriptions, and output schemas affect behavior
• ▹Debugging beyond the prompt: telling whether a bad response comes from unclear instructions, missing context, poor retrieval, a tool failure, or application code
• ▹Testing changes across representative cases and tracking prompt versions
• ▹Writing maintainable TypeScript, validated APIs, and scoped database queries
• ▹Clear written English communication in prompts, technical discussions, and PRs
• ▹Ownership: clarifying ambiguous work and flagging blockers early

Nice to have

• ▹Experience with chat systems, agent harnesses, memory, or retrieval
• ▹A serious side project

Soft skills

About the company

Vantum helps fractional operators win new clients while delivering for the clients they already have. At the center of the product is Ask Vantum, an AI chat that understands the user's goals, connects to their work, and helps decide what to do next. The five-person team is working toward product-market fit. Tech stack: TypeScript, Next.js App Router, PostgreSQL, Prisma, and OpenRouter.