Senior Backend Platform Engineer

About the Company

Adalat AI is building an end-to-end justice tech stack that automates manual and clerical pain points in courtrooms, giving judges back time to focus on what matters most: decision-making and delivering justice. Our solutions - from AI-powered transcription in Indian languages to case-flow management and document navigation - are now deployed across 9 states, covering nearly 20% of India’s judiciary. Backed by leading technology companies and funders, and incubated at MIT and Oxford, Adalat AI is working to eliminate judicial delays and expand access to timely justice. Founded by a team with backgrounds in law, technology, and economics from Harvard, Oxford, MIT, and IIIT Hyderabad, we are scaling rapidly across India and the Global South.

Role Overview

As a Senior Backend Platform Engineer at Adalat AI, you will build and run the backend systems that power our products, spanning APIs, databases, and infrastructure. You will design and deliver core platform components end-to-end, keep our systems scalable and production-grade, and work closely with product, design, QA, and domain experts (judiciary, linguists, policy stakeholders) to turn complex requirements into robust technical solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Own the design and delivery of core backend services, from data modelling and schema design to API contracts, service logic, and deployment.
Write production-quality code, with strong testing practices and careful, well-reviewed releases.
Monitor production performance and handle incidents, debugging, and performance tuning.
Work with product, design, and domain teams to translate business requirements into backend solutions.

Qualifications

10+ years of professional experience building and shipping production-grade backend systems and APIs.
Strong proficiency in Go and relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL, including schema design, query optimisation, and migrations.
Track record of designing and delivering complex backend systems from requirements through deployment and ongoing maintenance.
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, including workload configuration, scaling, and day-to-day infrastructure maintenance.
Comfortable in a fast-paced, early-stage startup where requirements evolve; self-driven, flexible, and hands-on.

Bonus / Nice-to-have

Familiarity with real-time data pipelines or streaming backends.
Familiarity with frontend technologies (React, Next.js).
Interest in or experience at the intersection of technology and social impact, public systems, or the legal domain.

What You Will Achieve in a Year

Take ownership of key components of the backend platform that drives our ML features.
Resolve architectural issues and long-standing technical debt in the platform.
Strengthen the k8s ecosystem with better deployment hygiene, observability, and security practices.

Our Interview Process

We keep our process straightforward and transparent. Here's what to expect:

R1 — Founder Chat (30 minutes)
An introduction to Adalat AI — our mission, the problem we're solving, and an initial conversation around role fit.
R3 — Technical Round (60 minutes)
A coding session on a pre-shared codebase. You'll have time to review it beforehand so you can hit the ground running.
R3 — Background Deep-Dive (60 minutes)
A focused discussion on your background — the problems you've worked on, what you've built, and how your experience connects to what we're doing at Adalat AI.
R5 — Offer
If it's a great match on both sides, we'll move forward with an offer.