About Meraki Labs
Meraki Labs is at the forefront of India's deep-tech innovation landscape, operating as a dynamic
venture studio founded by visionary entrepreneur
Mukesh Bansal (Founder - Myntra, Cure Fit) and Peeyush Ranjan (Former Google VP and Flipkart CTO). Our mission is to build and rapidly scale AI-first, moonshot startups—transforming groundbreaking ideas into next-generation industry leaders. Through a hands-on, intensive partnership model, we work closely with exceptional founders, driving these ventures from concept to impact.
The Role
We are looking for a
Senior Backend Engineer (4 to 7 years) who thrives on building the invisible machinery that powers complex applications. You aren't just writing APIs; you are architecting resilient, distributed systems that can handle the rigor of financial transactions at scale. You will act as a high-output IC while providing the architectural rails and mentorship for a small, high-performance engineering team.
What You'll Do
- Architect for Scale: Design and implement robust, scalable backend services using Java).
- Own the Infrastructure: Build and maintain distributed systems, focusing on microservices architecture, event-driven design, and seamless third-party integrations.
- System Integrity: Take ownership of system health—optimizing database queries, managing cache layers (Redis/Memcached), and ensuring high availability and fault tolerance.
- AI Integration: Lead the charge in AI-forward development. This includes building RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines, managing vector databases, or optimizing model inference latency within the backend stack.
What We're Looking For
- The Experience: 4 to 7 years in backend development, with a significant portion spent architecting systems from 0 to 1 or scaling them to 10x.
- The Core: Deep mastery of Java and its ecosystem. You should be comfortable with concurrency, JVM tuning, and asynchronous processing.
- Architecture Savvy: You understand the trade-offs between SQL (PostgreSQL/MySQL) and NoSQL, and you know how to leverage message brokers (Kafka/RabbitMQ) for decoupled systems.
- FinTech DNA: You understand the nuances of trust, security, and precision in financial interfaces.
- AI Curiosity: You have explored the intersection of backend engineering and AI—whether through personal projects using LangChain, fine-tuning models, or building specialized API wrappers for LLMs.
- Leadership: You enjoy being an Individual Contributor but have the emotional intelligence and technical depth to collaborate with the team.
Technical Keywords We Value
- Languages/Frameworks: Java 17+, Spring Boot, Hibernate.
- Data & Messaging: PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, Elasticsearch.
- DevOps/Cloud: Docker, Kubernetes, AWS/GCP, CI/CD pipelines.
- AI: Vector DBs (Pinecone/Weaviate), OpenAI API integration, Python (for AI prototyping).
Why This Role
- Complex Challenges: Solve high-stakes problems where millisecond improvements impact the bottom line.
- Modern Stack: Work in an environment that values AI experimentation and modern Java practices over legacy maintenance.
- Impact: As a Lead IC, your architectural decisions will define the company's technical foundation for years to come.
Why Join Us
- An opportunity to directly work with founders.
- High autonomy and ownership of the frontend roadmap.
- Meaningful ESOP.
- The chance to build in an AI-native environment.
- Competitive compensation and the opportunity to shape the engineering culture of a growing team.
Interview Process
- Technical Round 1 - 60 minutes
- Take Home Assignment + Panel Presentation
- Culture Fitment
The Recruiter for this role is Ritesh Kalvellu - [Confidential Information]. You can connect with him for queries about the role.
