Level

Exa

Software Engineer, Backend

Exa is hiring a Software Engineer, Backend in Singapore, Singapore. It pays SGD 90k-SGD 300k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Exa.

Level's read on this job

  • Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this software engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
  • The posting mentions Cursor, Rust and C among its tools and skills.
  • Level classes it as a mid-level role.
  • Exa has 56 other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Build massive-scale infrastructure, web crawlers, and vector search systems powering AI-driven search.

cursorrustc
backenddistributed-systemsdatabasesmachine-learningsearch-engines

Exa is an applied AI lab building a search engine unlike the world has ever seen. We build massive-scale infra to crawl the entire web, train state-of-the-art embedding models to process it, and design super high performant vector databases to retrieve over it. We now power search for Cursor, Cognition, HubSpot, and over 400,000 developers and have raised $350m from Lightspeed, Benchmark, and a16z.

 

Our ultimate goal is to build perfect search over all the world's information, far beyond Google. If you want to build massive-scale ML systems that will define the way the new AI world consumes information, this is the place for you.

 

As a backend engineer, you'd play a critical role in our search architecture. We're pretty flexible on what projects people work on based on their skills and interests.

Desired Experience

  • You have experience writing and maintaining high throughput, low latency systems

  • You can build data processing pipelines that deal with millions of documents per day

  • You’re comfortable optimizing a system to an exceptional degree

  • You care about the problem of finding high quality information and recognize how important this is for the world

  • Plus: Experience in some high performance language (C++, Rust, etc.)

Example Projects

  • Recreate Google-level keyword search over 10 billion pages in 1 month

  • Build a state-of-the-art crawling system that works optimally for any website

  • Build a custom vector database that runs over a billion vectors in under 100ms

Logistics

  • Location: This is an in-person opportunity in Singapore.

  • Visas: We’re happy to sponsor international candidates! While we cannot guarantee your visa, we have historically been successful in sponsoring candidates from all over the world. If you receive an offer, our team will work hard to get you a visa.

  • Benefits: We offer premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), fertility benefits, 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents, and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.

Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

How we rate this

Software Engineer, Backend at Exa rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

BackendDistributed SystemsDatabasesMachine learningSearch EnginesCursorRustC

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Pay

Typical software engineer job
$168k

Use the typical software engineer figure as a reference when pay comes up. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

  1. Tell me about a project where backend was part of your work. What did you do?
  2. Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
  3. Tell me about a project where databases was part of your work. What did you do?
  4. Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
  5. Tell me about a project where search engines was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: Backend, Distributed Systems, Databases, Machine learning, and Search Engines. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
  • Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
  • Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

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