Senior Elixir Engineer - ML/CV Startup Career Growth in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This is a high-specificity senior IC role requiring a rare trifecta: production computer vision deployment, functional programming (ideally Elixir), and Series A–D startup experience. The niche requirements make this a strong career signal — companies seeking all three are typically building serious, differentiated products in computer vision infrastructure, smart spaces, or video analytics.
Compensation context: No salary is listed, but Senior Backend Engineers with ML/CV production experience at US startups typically command $160,000–$220,000 annually in total comp (base + equity), depending on stage and location. The Series A–D range means equity upside is meaningful if you join early enough.
Skills you'll develop:
- Production-grade Elixir systems at scale — a rare and increasingly valuable skill as Elixir adoption grows in real-time/streaming industries.
- Edge and cloud CV deployment (object detection, tracking, video analytics) — in high demand across retail tech, smart cities, and autonomous systems.
- End-to-end technical ownership in a fast-moving startup environment.
Green flags: Strong IC culture, clear disqualification of research-only profiles (they want real builders), and functional programming emphasis suggest a technically rigorous team.
Potential red flag: No mention of benefits, PTO, or engineering culture beyond role requirements — worth probing in interviews. The explicit exclusion of consultants/freelancers suggests they want long-term commitment and stability.
Our client is looking for a hands-on Senior Backend Engineer with experience building and shipping machine learning or computer vision systems into real-world production environments. This role is ideal for an engineer who combines strong backend development skills with practical experience deploying computer vision solutions, whether on edge devices or in the cloud.
The ideal candidate has worked as an individual contributor at a Series A–D startup, has production experience with Elixir or another functional programming language, and can take ownership of complex technical challenges in a fast-paced environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain scalable backend systems using Elixir and Python.
- Develop and support production systems that integrate machine learning or computer vision capabilities.
- Build and maintain infrastructure for real-world applications such as object detection, people or vehicle detection, cross-camera tracking, and video analytics.
- Collaborate with engineering and product teams to bring ML/CV capabilities into reliable production environments.
- Own technical decisions, implementation, testing, and deployment as a hands-on individual contributor.
- Troubleshoot performance, reliability, and scalability challenges across backend and ML-enabled systems.
Requirements
- Production ML/CV Experience: Proven experience shipping at least one machine learning or computer vision system into a real-world production environment, either on edge devices or in the cloud. Relevant examples include people detection, vehicle detection, cross-camera tracking, and video analytics.
- Startup Experience: At least 4 years of experience as a hands-on individual contributor backend engineer at a Series A–D startup, as a full-time employee.
- Functional Programming: Production experience with Elixir or another functional programming language, such as Scala, Haskell, Clojure, OCaml, F#, or Erlang.
- Backend Engineering: Strong backend development experience, with the ability to design, build, and maintain production-grade systems.
- Technical Ownership: Comfortable working independently, solving complex engineering problems, and contributing directly to code.
- Location and Work Authorization: Must currently reside in the United States and be either a US citizen or Green Card holder. Visa-based work authorization is not eligible.
Candidate Profile & Role Alignment
Candidates must demonstrate a combination of real-world production ML/CV deployment, hands-on backend engineering at a Series A–D startup, and functional programming experience. All three are essential.
The following backgrounds are not aligned with this position:
- Pure AI researchers, PhD-focused research profiles, LLM-only experience, or candidates whose experience is primarily training models from scratch. These backgrounds do not substitute for shipping computer vision systems into production.
- Elixir developers without demonstrated experience deploying an ML or computer vision system into production.
- Consultants, freelancers, former founders/CTOs, or candidates without the required full-time startup employee experience.
- Candidates whose experience is primarily in government, defense, or heavily regulated environments, including organizations such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, Anduril, Palantir, and Raytheon.
- Candidates from research-heavy autonomous vehicle teams, including Waymo and Zoox.
- Managers and executives who are no longer hands-on engineers.
Important: Production computer vision experience is a non-negotiable requirement. Strong Elixir experience alone is not sufficient.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this role open to visa holders or non-US citizens?
Is Elixir experience strictly required, or will other functional languages be considered?
Will candidates with strong ML research backgrounds (e.g., PhDs, model training) be considered?
What type of computer vision experience is most relevant for this role?
Is this a remote position?
