Genie

Build and maintain secure, scalable real-time chat backend infrastructure with friend management, message persistence, and API integration for iOS. | Proven experience with real-time messaging backends, strong Python backend skills, WebSocket familiarity, secure encrypted message storage, API design, and friend/contact management. | We need a messaging systems expert who can build the secure, scalable chat infrastructure that enables meaningful connections within our AI-powered discovery ecosystem. We're a team of product and design veterans building breakthrough AI search technology that understands context, relationships, and intent in ways current systems can't. Our design and technical work has caught the attention of leaders at OpenAI, Perplexity, and Airbnb—but we're just getting started. Genie helps friends share discoveries and experiences with each other, but we need the infrastructure for those conversations to happen seamlessly. We need someone to build production-ready chat infrastructure that handles real-time messaging, friend management, and secure data flows—architected from day one to scale to group conversations, media sharing, and AI-enhanced interactions. We need a messaging systems expert who: • Architects real-time messaging infrastructure with WebSocket handling, message persistence, delivery guarantees, and sub-second latency across friend networks • Implements secure message storage systems with end-to-end encryption, automated TTL policies, and zero-plaintext data persistence that meets modern privacy standards • Designs scalable friend management workflows including request states, notification triggers, and relationship graphs that can evolve into complex social features • Builds extensible API architecture with clean mobile integration patterns, push notification orchestration, and forward-compatibility for group chat and AI-enhanced messaging TL;DR: Build the chat infrastructure that turns AI-powered discoveries into lasting human connections. ---- WHAT WE NEED BUILT - Backend services to power fast, reliable, secure 1-to-1 chat for our iOS app - Core capabilities: -- Friend management (add, accept/reject, remove, pending states) -- Real-time messaging with send/receive, read receipts, typing indicators -- iOS push + in-app notification triggers for messages and friend events -- Message persistence with 90-day TTL and encrypted storage (no plaintext) - Well-documented API endpoints for our app’s iOS frontend to integrate with - Architecture designed for easy extension to future features (group chat, media upload, threading, reactions, AI search in chat) WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING - Designing and implementing backend data models for friends, chats, and messages - Building REST or GraphQL APIs (and/or WebSocket endpoints) for sending, receiving, and retrieving messages - Implementing friend request flows with pending states, notifications, and accept/reject handling - Enabling message status tracking (sent, delivered, read) and typing indicators - Creating event triggers for push notifications and in-app notifications - Implementing message storage with 90-day TTL and encryption - Reviewing existing frontend packaging notes and API expectations to minimize integration friction with our iOS team - Ensuring scalability for future group chat and media upload features - Writing clear API documentation for our frontend engineer - Coordinating with our product and frontend teams for smooth integration WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR IN A CANDIDATE - Proven experience building real-time messaging backends at scale - Strong backend engineering skills in Python - Familiarity with WebSockets or similar real-time transport protocols - Experience designing secure message storage with encryption at rest and in transit - Ability to design and document clean, versioned APIs for mobile apps - Understanding of friend/contact management flows - Strong communication skills for async collaboration NICE TO HAVE IN A CANDIDATE - Experience integrating with push notification services - Familiarity with chat message template systems or modular in-chat content - Experience with anti-spam, abuse prevention, and rate limiting in messaging apps - Knowledge of media handling pipelines for future features - Experience with database technologies for chat (PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Redis, MongoDB) WHAT WE'LL PROVIDE - Full PRD and design specs for chat experience - API requirements and packaging notes from our iOS frontend engineer - Access to our dev environment and infrastructure - Support from our product and design teams for clarifications - Staging environment for integration testing Job Type: Contract People with a criminal record are encouraged to apply Work Location: Remote