Founding Infrastructure & Backend Engineer

About the CompanyBig Shot Pictures is a next generation animation company founded by Brian Robbins that produces the franchises of tomorrow. With a distinctive digital-first approach, the company builds global animation franchises across all platforms - from digital to theatrical, gaming to streaming, and consumer products to experiences. Big Shot has a first-look theatrical distribution deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment and is backed by strategic investment from Greycroft, Sony Pictures, MarcyPen Capital Partners, ValueAct Capital, and CAA.About the RoleBig Shot Pictures is building the infrastructure that powers next-generation AI-enabled animation pipelines, and we're looking for a Backend Engineer who is, above all else, a builder. You're the kind of engineer who sees a problem (whether it's a clunky internal workflow for an animator, a fragile deployment pipeline, or a missing API integration), and just fixes it. You don't wait for a product spec. This role sits at the intersection of backend, platform, security, and product. You'll own the backend systems and products that underpin our studio's workflows: internal tools for animators and marketers, integrations for external partners, and the APIs that connect everything. You're equally energized by hardening cloud infrastructure and by shipping something that makes a creative's day meaningfully easier. If you've thrived as an early engineer at a startup where everyone wears multiple hats, you already understand this job.ResponsibilitiesBuild and ship real products "” internal tools for animators, marketers, and producers; APIs for external partners; dashboards and interfaces that make creative workflows meaningfully betterUse agentic engineering tools (Cursor, Claude, Copilot, etc.) as genuine force multipliers in your own workflow, and help the broader team do the sameDesign and maintain scalable backend services with Python FastAPI, deployed on GCP and Vercel, supporting real-time AI pipelines across image, video, and audioOwn cloud infrastructure on GCP (compute, networking, storage, and GPU-accelerated workloads via RunPod or similar services), and build the automation that keeps it reliable and cost-efficientBuild and maintain CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, and infrastructure-as-code so the team can ship fast with confidenceIntegrate and orchestrate AI model APIs across our stack "” Anthropic, OpenAI, and OpenRouter "” and manage HuggingFace model deployments and inference endpointsImplement security best practices end-to-end: secrets management, IAM/RBAC, audit logging, and a security posture that scales with the companyMaintain observability and reliability using Sentry and other monitoring tooling "” you notice problems before users do, and you fix themQualifications4+ years of backend engineering experience with strong Python skills; FastAPI experience a plusHands-on experience with GCP, AWS or equivalent. We want someone who has built real, performant, scalable cloud systems from the ground up.Solid DevOps fundamentals: containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-codeExperience integrating with AI/ML APIs in production "” ideally Anthropic, OpenAI, or OpenRouter "” with an understanding of cost, latency, and reliability tradeoffsWorking knowledge of security engineering: secrets management, IAM/RBAC, network security, and secure software development practicesComfort with observability tooling (Sentry or similar) and a habit of caring about what happens after you deployTrack record of building for real users (ex. internal tools, partner integrations, or customer-facing products)Genuine excitement about agentic AI tools as part of your daily workflow; you have opinions, you experiment, and you share what you learnRequired SkillsPrior experience at an early-stage startup (seed through Series B), ideally as an early or sole infrastructure hireHands-on experience with RunPod or other cloud GPU providers for ML inference workloadsExperience working directly with HuggingFace "” model deployments, Inference Endpoints, or the Hub ecosystemComfort shipping frontend-adjacent work (simple UIs, internal dashboards) "” you don't need to be a frontend engineer, but you're not blocked by it eitherPreferred SkillsExperience in media, entertainment, or content production environmentsFamiliarity with real-time or streaming data architecturesPrior work on platforms supporting creative tooling or digital asset managementContributions to open-source projects in the AI/ML or infrastructure spaceEqual Opportunity StatementWe are committed to diversity and inclusivity in our hiring practices.

Created: 2026-05-16