Backend Developer (AI Camera App)

Location: Gurugram, Haryana, India

Experience: 3–6 years

About the Company

Hukilabs is a small, product-focused company building an AI camera application with the ambition to create a system that is fast, scalable, and ready for intelligent features from day one. The team is lean, so every hire has real ownership and a direct line to product impact. This role sits at the center of how the product works, making architectural choices that shape performance, reliability, and future growth. The environment is best suited to someone who enjoys building from scratch, making decisions independently, and turning early product ideas into stable systems. Success here means designing backend foundations that can support real-time usage, media-heavy workflows, and AI-driven experiences without adding unnecessary complexity.

Company Practices & Ways of Working

The team works lean, which means the role carries end-to-end ownership and direct influence on core product decisions. The right person will be trusted to build the system the right way, not just follow instructions.
The company expects independent thinking and clear communication, especially when explaining technical decisions to a non-technical founder. Good judgment matters as much as technical depth.
The role is intended for someone who prefers building from scratch over maintaining legacy systems. The working style is hands-on, fast-moving, and focused on creating a strong technical base early.
This is a highly immersive, founder-led environment where you get the opportunity to live and work closely with the founder while building the product together. The culture is fast-moving, collaborative, creative, and unconventional — combining intense execution with a relaxed, enjoyable, work-house style setup designed around ownership, experimentation, and having fun while creating something ambitious.

About the Role

This role owns the backbone of an AI camera app, from backend architecture through the systems that move, store, and process user and media data. You will make the key decisions that define how the product performs, scales, and supports intelligent features over time. The work spans APIs, data models, storage, cloud infrastructure, and AI integration, with a strong focus on speed and reliability. This is not a support role or a narrow API implementation job. It is a high-ownership position for someone who can design the system, make trade-offs confidently, and execute with minimal oversight. The outcome is a backend that can support real-time product use, AI workloads, and future product expansion without rework.

Key Responsibilities

Design and own the backend architecture end to end, making the core technical choices that determine performance, scalability, and maintainability as the product grows.
Build product APIs that support core app functionality, ensure clean integration with the frontend, and keep the system reliable under real user demand.
Create AI processing pipelines that can handle model-driven workflows such as pose detection and recommendations, while keeping latency and stability in check.
Design user data and media storage systems that can manage images, videos, and related metadata efficiently across cloud environments.
Build for low-latency, real-time data flow so the application responds quickly during active usage and media-heavy interactions.
Select and shape the backend stack, database design, and cloud infrastructure with the independence expected in a 0-to-100 build.
Integrate AI/ML services or models into the product in a way that is practical, scalable, and aligned with the application's future roadmap.
Explain technical trade-offs clearly to a non-technical founder so product and engineering decisions stay aligned.

Essential Skills & Technologies

Strong hands-on backend experience in Node.js or Python, including frameworks such as FastAPI or Django, with the ability to turn product needs into working systems.
Solid understanding of scalable architecture and API design, with judgment to choose simple solutions that can still support growth and performance.
Experience working with both SQL and NoSQL databases, including schema design, data modeling, and trade-off selection based on product needs.
Practical cloud experience across AWS, GCP, or Firebase, with the ability to design infrastructure that supports reliability, deployment, and scale.
Experience integrating AI/ML models or services into backend systems, especially where inference, orchestration, or workflow coordination is required.
Familiarity with media handling for images and videos, including storage, retrieval, and backend patterns that keep the product fast and stable.
Comfort building systems that need real-time behavior, such as WebSockets, streaming, or other low-latency data flows.
Ability to think through backend and infrastructure decisions independently, with a bias toward ownership and execution rather than waiting for direction.

Additional Plus

Experience with computer vision, ML inference, or GPU-related optimization is a big plus because the product may depend on efficient AI workloads.
Background in creator tools or social products is helpful since the app likely needs strong media and engagement workflows.
Experience working in a lean startup environment is valuable because the role demands speed, ownership, and comfort with ambiguity.

What You'll Bring

Proven ability to own backend systems end to end, making technical decisions that improve product reliability, performance, and scale without needing heavy supervision.
Strong communication skills that let you explain architecture, trade-offs, and implementation choices clearly to a non-technical founder and other stakeholders.
A builder mindset with the discipline to turn early product ideas into stable systems, especially in environments where the stack and architecture are still being defined.
Confidence working across backend, cloud, data, and AI integration layers so the product can move quickly without creating brittle foundations.

Perks & Culture (This is Where You Stand Out)

Startup Living Experience

Option to live and build together in a highly collaborative environment
Work, chill, create, and grow in the same space alongside the founder and core team

Daily Vibes

Coffee sessions, idea jams, spontaneous brainstorming, and constant creative exchange
Not just work — a high-energy environment built around creativity, experimentation, and momentum

Food & Basics Covered

We make sure you are taken care of so you can stay focused on building and creating
A setup designed to reduce friction and keep the team operating at full creative energy

Fun + Hustle

Dance, chill, create, repeat
We take the work seriously, but not ourselves

Builder Freedom

Real ownership over tech decisions, architecture, and execution direction
Freedom to experiment, move fast, and shape the product from the ground up

High Learning Curve

Work directly with the founder in an immersive startup environment
Build something from scratch that real creators and users will engage with every day

Vision

Work like a startup
Grow like a multinational
Enjoy the culture like a creator community