Senior Backend Engineer

LILT in the News

• List #52 in The Software Report’s Top 100 Software Companies!
• LILT makes it onto the Inc. 5000 List.
• AI Day Spring 2025 Webinar "Revolutionizing Content with AI Agents."
• LILT's co-founder John Denero, and employees Joern Wuebker and Thomas Zenkel, were approved for U.S. Patent for their neural word alignment process, significantly advances machine translation by preserving formatting accuracy.
• Check out all our news on our website.

About LILT

LILT was founded by Spence and John, who met at Google working on Google Translate and saw the need for better AI-powered translation in the enterprise. Since 2015, LILT has focused on building cutting-edge language technology, investing early in Large Language Models to improve translation quality and meet the demands of global organizations.

Today, LILT’s Contextual AI Engine, Connector APIs, and Human Adaptive Feedback deliver accurate, nuanced translation across text, video, and speech in 100+ languages. Integrated with 100+ business systems, LILT helps enterprises scale global growth and deliver seamless multilingual experiences. We are trusted by Intel Corporation, Canva, the United States Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, ASICS, and hundreds of global Enterprises. LILT is backed by visionary investors including Intel Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Redpoint.

The Engineering Team at LILT

LILT is a high-performance, large-scale language translation system. We invest in and prioritize workflow (i.e., usability and interface design) and backend AI systems. Since the translation workforce is distributed worldwide, there are interesting cloud engineering problems to solve. We have a strong preference for building our own backend technology, so you’ll be implementing and working with the latest natural language processing (NLP) techniques and ideas.

Where You’ll Work

This position can be based out of our Emeryville, CA or Indianapolis, IN offices and will be expected to work in the office in a hybrid capacity. Additional locations include the Washington D.C., New York City, and Boston metropolitan areas where you will start as fully remote and then transition to hybrid once offices are opened in those locations.

Authorization to work in the US is a precondition of employment.

What you’ll do

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will work with a group of talented, mission-driven colleagues to propose ideas to define, drive, and execute projects on Lilt’s core platform–the heart of our machine translation services. You will enable customers to deliver multilingual journeys and to provide truly localized experiences. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role with enormous growth opportunities.

You must be curious, have attention to detail, be energized by a challenging entrepreneurial environment, be comfortable thinking big while also diving deep, and be open to experimenting and iterating on processes as the company grows.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with engineering and infrastructure teams to design, build and improve our platform’s backend systems, file filters and data stores to help us scale our services effectively.
• Apply your engineering experience to implement new platform features to drive growth, partnering with product and engineering teams to help decompose huge business requirements into smaller deliverables.
• Actively mentor peers and Lilt’s community on advanced technical issues, helping them grow their careers.
• Strive to raise the technical excellence bar, contributing to code quality, doing code reviews, increasing test coverage, etc.

Skills and Experience

• 5+ years of software development experience with several general purpose programming languages including Java and Python.
• 2+ years of experience leading a major software component.
• Proven ability to drive large-scale engineering efforts to completion and demonstrated knowledge of industry trends and best practices for scaling cloud-based services.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Nice to Have

• 3+ years of experience with Okapi framework and file filters: XLIFF, XLIFF2, XML, JSON, Markdown, TTX filters, etc.

Benefits

• Compensation: At market salary, meaningful equity, 401(k) matching, and flexible time off plus company holidays
• Medical Benefits: Employees receive coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance, plus FSA/DFSA, HSA, and Commuter benefits. In addition, LILT pays for basic life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability
• Paid parental leave is provided after 6 months.
• Monthly lifestyle benefit stipend via the Fringe platform to allow employees to customize benefits to their lifestyle

Information collected and processed as part of your application process, including any job applications you choose to submit, is subject to LILT's Privacy Policy at https://lilt.com/legal/privacy_

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At LILT, we are committed to a fair, inclusive, and transparent hiring process. As part of our recruitment efforts, we may use artificial intelligence (AI) and automated tools to assist in the evaluation of applications, including résumé screening, assessment scoring, and interview analysis. These tools are designed to support human decision-making and help us identify qualified candidates efficiently and objectively. All final hiring decisions are made by people. If you have any concerns, require accommodations, or would like to opt-out of the use of AI in our hiring process, please let us know at recruiting@lilt.com.

LILT is an equal opportunity employer. We extend equal opportunity to all individuals without regard to an individual’s race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic characteristics, veteran or marital status, pregnancy, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state or federal laws. We are committed to the principles of fair employment and the elimination of all discriminatory practices.