Staff Backend Engineer, Data Platform

About the role

WHO WE ARE AT OSMO:

Osmo is the Olfactory Intelligence company, on a mission to give AI a sense of smell to improve the health and wellbeing of human life. Why? Our sense of smell has the ability to delight us, protect us, and heal us.

Olfactory Intelligence has applications across industries including fragrance, manufacturing, security, medicine, and more. We believe in the power of automation and thoughtfully applied AI/ML to solve problems beyond the reach of human intuition alone.

We're headquartered in Elizabeth, NJ, with an additional office in Somerville, MA. We provide complimentary shuttle service from Brooklyn and Newark, NJ.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Osmo's engineering team is currently junior, and we're looking for the senior backend voice to help it grow up. This is a backend-forward seat with a data component on the side, not a database architecture role: you'll own systems up through the API layer, bringing production judgment, on-call experience, and structured problem solving the team doesn't have yet.

You'll have the trust to question whether a big, ambiguous problem is even worth solving, and the autonomy to scope the right first chunk of it rather than diving straight into code. This isn't a scale or performance role at this stage. It's about laying a robust foundation, handling long-running requests and calls to systems that can fail, and building real recovery paths, not just happy-path code.

WHAT YOU'LL DO:

- Own Backend Systems Through the API Layer — Handle the complexity underneath the API contract, not just define it.

- Bring Production Judgment — Take on monitoring and on-call responsibility, knowing what should be watched and why.

- Build for Failure, Not Just the Happy Path — Handle long-running requests and calls to other systems that might fail or crash, with real recovery paths.

- Lay the Foundation for Scale Later — Focus on robustness and foundational reliability now, not premature scale or performance optimization.

- Work With Data the Way a Backend Engineer Does — User-oriented data work, not database architecture.

- Be the Senior Backend Voice — Bring structured problem solving and production experience to a team that doesn't have it yet.

WHO YOU ARE:

- 6-15 Years of Non-Internship Experience — Staff-level backend engineer; internships, co-ops, and student roles don't count toward this.

- A Designer, Not Just an Implementer — Real system or workflow design ownership, not just "built X, shipped Y" without design-level involvement.

- Real Production Ownership — Has run services in production, including on-call and monitoring responsibility.

- Staff-Level Problem Solver — Can take a large, ambiguous problem, question whether it's the right one to solve at all, and scope a sensible first chunk instead of diving straight in.

- Comfortable Building the Foundation — Not chasing scale for its own sake; ready to do foundational reliability and robustness work first.