Join us at Dapper Labs, where we are building new business models for creators, brands, and communities on the internet. We are partners with and manage the digital asset platforms for the world's biggest brands – the NBA, the NFL, and Disney – and we also own and operate products based on our own IPs – CryptoKitties and Miquela. We are a fast-moving startup team obsessed with bringing our vision for a better digital future to life.

Are you the type of person who lives for data, thrives in fast-paced environments, and loves getting things done? Do you geek out over sports, gaming, and Web3? If yes, we might just have your dream job waiting for you. We’re on the hunt for an AI Centric Staff Backend Engineer to help take our Digital Sports Collectibles team to the next level. In this founding‑level role, you’ll architect lightning‑fast, AI‑powered backend systems that make our Sports Collectibles products smarter, slicker, and ready for prime time—while laying the cultural and technical foundations for a team that will scale.

What you’ll do

• Design & architect scalable, AI‑driven backend systems that power high‑performance user experiences and intelligent in‑product features across our flagship platforms.

• Build and maintain robust APIs and micro‑services in Go (or similar performant languages) with an emphasis on reliability, security, developer ergonomics, and AI agent extensibility.

• Develop production AI agents & services—from retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) chatbots to autonomous ops agents—that super‑charge our products and internal developer workflows.

• Integrate blockchain technologies and handle high‑throughput data flows and transactions, leveraging AI models for anomaly detection, fraud prevention, and dynamic pricing.

• Implement real‑time monitoring, alerting, and self‑healing mechanisms, using AI/ML observability tools to proactively surface performance bottlenecks and optimization opportunities.

• Lead backend efforts across the entire development lifecycle—from strategic planning and technical design to hands‑on implementation, deployment, and iteration.

• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams (frontend, mobile, product, data science & design) to ship end‑to‑end experiences that are both performant and delightful.

• Oversee database design, management, and optimization (SQL, NoSQL, and vector databases) across multiple systems and services.

• Document system architecture, APIs, and AI model behaviors for internal and external development stakeholders.

• Champion secure and ethical AI practices—ensuring user data privacy, model governance, and transparent decision‑making.

• Mentor and eventually manage engineers, growing into a leadership role as the team scales, fostering an inclusive, high‑performance engineering culture.

• Influence technical and product strategy as a founding engineer, partnering with leadership to set vision, prioritize investments, and allocate resources.

About you

• Backend engineering experience, including building production AI/ML systems or intelligent agents.

• Proven ability to design and implement scalable, cloud‑native architectures in Go (or comparable languages) on AWS, GCP, or similar.

• Deep understanding of API architecture, distributed systems, and database technologies (both relational, NoSQL, and vector search).

• Track record of shipping AI‑enabled features—prompt engineering, fine‑tuning LLMs, integrating commercial or open‑source models, and using frameworks such as LangChain or Semantic Kernel.

• Comfortable leading and eventually managing backend projects and small teams from concept to deployment.

• Strong advocate for clean code, testability, observability, and best‑practice Git workflows (trunk‑based development, CI/CD).

• Experience working in Agile, cross‑functional environments, delivering iteratively while maintaining a long‑term architectural vision.

• Passionate about blockchain technology, gaming, redefining digital ownership—and excited by the intersection of AI and Web3.

Bonus points

• Experience architecting and deploying cloud infrastructure with Terraform, Kubernetes, and service meshes.

• Hands‑on background with smart contracts, NFTs, or zk‑based scaling solutions.

• Built backend or AI tooling that substantially enhanced developer workflows or platform efficiency.

• Contributions to open‑source AI frameworks, LLM orchestration libraries, or backend systems.

• Prior experience at an early‑stage startup or as a founding engineer.

Why you’ll love working here

We’re a passionate, fast‑moving team where your impact is felt immediately. You’ll have:

• Ownership & autonomy to shape both the technology and culture of a high‑growth vertical.

• A front‑row seat to the convergence of sports fandom, blockchain, and generative AI.

• Growth opportunities—you’ll help build the team you want to lead.

• Competitive compensation, equity upside, and world‑class benefits.

Join us and redefine how fans collect, trade, and experience digital sports moments—powered by state‑of‑the‑art AI and blockchain technology.

Dapper Labs was conceived in 2017 and founded in 2018 on the thesis that crypto enables much more than just currency. We saw a world where crypto technology is as integral to daily life and the average business as the internet is, a core part of applications that everyone uses every day. Crypto networks enable a better digital future for humanity. For the first time, developers can write software applications that let individuals can own their own data, digital assets, and online identities irrevocably; where creators and IP owners can build for their communities and own the relationship they help create; where businesses of any kind can rely on open access to software systems and any customers that might want to use their product. In other words, crypto enables a world where the most important parts of the software we rely on for our everyday lives is in our own control, running on networks that anyone can access and build on, that everyone can verify and trust, and that no-one can censor, block, or gate-keep. Software by the people, for the people.We have raised over $600M from leading and notable investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Union Square Ventures, Venrock, Google Ventures (GV), Samsung, and the founders of Dreamworks, Reddit, Coinbase, Zynga, and AngelList, among others.

Visit our website to learn even more about Dapper Labs, including information about benefits and perks.