5+ years backend engineering experience (distributed services, APIs, data), including experience with LLM-powered applications. Proficiency in Python or Go; strong API design and service ownership. Experience with LLMs: Prompting, tool/function calling, RAG, embeddings, evaluation fundamentals, and model limitations/safety. Experience with Data: SQL (e.g., Postgres), caching (e.g., Redis), queues/streams (e.g., Kafka), and schema design. Experience with Cloud: Containers (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), and a major cloud (AWS). Clear written and spoken English; willingness to present on camera and learn teaching best practices. Solid testing practices, code reviews, monitoring/logging/tracing, and performance tuning.