2+ years of professional software engineering experience with ownership of production systems. Proven track record of shipping AI-powered products to production. Hands-on experience with large language models (LLMs) in real applications. Strong computer science fundamentals and a generalist mindset. Backend engineering skills in a modern web stack (e.g., Python, Go, Node). Confidence with relational databases and larger datasets. Experience building modern web front-ends, ideally with React. Experience raising the bar for quality and operations (secure, testable code, automation, design docs, mentoring).