AI is changing how the world communicates — and LILT is leading that transformation.

We're on a mission to make the world's information accessible to everyone, regardless of the language they speak. We use cutting-edge AI, machine translation, and human-in-the-loop expertise to translate content faster, more accurately, and more cost-effectively without compromising on brand, voice, or quality.

At LILT, we empower our teammates with leading tools, global collaboration, and growth opportunities to do their best work. Our company virtues—Work together, win together; Find a way or make one; Quicker than they expect; Quality is Job 1—guide everything we do. We are trusted by Intel Corporation, Canva, the United States Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, ASICS, and hundreds of global Enterprises. Backed by Sequoia, Intel Capital, and Redpoint, we’re building a category-defining company in a $50B+ global translation market being redefined by AI.

LILT is a high-performance, large-scale language translation system. We invest in and prioritize workflow (i.e., usability and interface design) and backend AI systems. Since the translation workforce is distributed worldwide, there are interesting cloud engineering problems to solve. We have a strong preference for building our own backend technology, so you’ll be implementing and working with the latest natural language processing (NLP) techniques and ideas.

This position can be based out of our Emeryville, CA or Indianapolis, IN offices and will be expected to work in the office in a hybrid capacity. Additional locations include the Washington D.C., New York City, and Boston metropolitan areas where you will start as fully remote and then transition to hybrid once offices are opened in those locations.

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will work with a group of talented, mission-driven colleagues to propose ideas to define, drive, and execute projects on Lilt’s core platform–the heart of our machine translation services. You will enable customers to deliver multilingual journeys and to provide truly localized experiences. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role with enormous growth opportunities.

You must be curious, have attention to detail, be energized by a challenging entrepreneurial environment, be comfortable thinking big while also diving deep, and be open to experimenting and iterating on processes as the company grows. 

• Collaborate with engineering and infrastructure teams to design, build and improve our platform’s backend systems, file filters and data stores to help us scale our services effectively.

• Apply your engineering experience to implement new platform features to drive growth, partnering with product and engineering teams to help decompose huge business requirements into smaller deliverables.

• Actively mentor peers and Lilt’s community on advanced technical issues, helping them grow their careers.

• Strive to raise the technical excellence bar, contributing to code quality, doing code reviews, increasing test coverage, etc.

• 5+ years of software development experience with several general purpose programming languages including Java and Python.

• 2+ years of experience leading a major software component.

• Proven ability to drive large-scale engineering efforts to completion and demonstrated knowledge of industry trends and best practices for scaling cloud-based services.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• 3+ years of experience with Okapi framework and file filters:  XLIFF, XLIFF2, XML, JSON, Markdown, TTX filters, etc.
  

• Compensation: At market salary, meaningful equity, 401(k) matching, and flexible time off plus company holidays

• Medical Benefits: Employees receive coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance, plus FSA/DFSA, HSA, and Commuter benefits. In addition, LILT pays for basic life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability

• Paid parental leave is provided after 6 months.

• Monthly lifestyle benefit stipend via the Fringe platform to allow employees to customize benefits to their lifestyle

Our founders, Spence and John met at Google working on Google Translate. As researchers at Stanford and Berkeley, they both worked on language technology to make information accessible to everyone. While together at Google, they were amazed to learn that Google Translate wasn’t used for enterprise products and services inside the company.The quality just wasn’t there. So they set out to build something better. LILT was born.

LILT has been a machine learning company since its founding in 2015. At the time, machine translation didn’t meet the quality standard for enterprise translations, so LILT assembled a cutting-edge research team tasked with closing that gap. While meeting customer demand for translation services, LILT has prioritized investments in Large Language Models, human-in-the-loop systems, and now agentic AI.

With AI innovation accelerating and enterprise demand growing, the next phase of LILT’s journey is just beginning.

What sets our platform apart:

• Brand-aware AI that learns your voice, tone, and terminology to ensure every translation is accurate and consistent

• Agentic AI workflows that automate the entire translation process from content ingestion to quality review to publishing

• 100+ native integrations with systems like Adobe Experience Manager, Webflow, Salesforce, GitHub, and Google Drive to simplify content translation

• Human-in-the-loop reviews via our global network of professional linguists, for high-impact content that requires expert review

• Featured in The Software Report’s Top 100 Software Companies!

• LILT makes it onto the Inc. 5000 List.

• LILT’s continues to be an intellectual powerhouse, holding numerous patents that help power the most efficient and sophisticated AI and language models in the industry.

• Check out all our news on our website.

Information collected and processed as part of your application process, including any job applications you choose to submit, is subject to LILT's Privacy Policy at https://lilt.com/legal/privacy.

At LILT, we are committed to a fair, inclusive, and transparent hiring process. As part of our recruitment efforts, we may use artificial intelligence (AI) and automated tools to assist in the evaluation of applications, including résumé screening, assessment scoring, and interview analysis. These tools are designed to support human decision-making and help us identify qualified candidates efficiently and objectively. All final hiring decisions are made by people. If you have any concerns, require accommodations, or would like to opt-out of the use of AI in our hiring process, please let us know at recruiting@lilt.com.

LILT is an equal opportunity employer. We extend equal opportunity to all individuals without regard to an individual’s race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic characteristics, veteran or marital status, pregnancy, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state or federal laws. We are committed to the principles of fair employment and the elimination of all discriminatory practices.

Compensation Range: $93K - $150K