Backend Engineer, Cloud AI Evaluation

About OpenTrain

OpenTrain AI is the hiring and contracting organization for this role. OpenTrain is the leading platform for finding and building careers in AI training and data labeling, helping people discover projects, build a professional profile, and apply in minutes.

As a contractor with OpenTrain, you will contribute directly to the development and evaluation of advanced AI systems while building experience in a fast-growing technical field.

• Remote work available worldwide
• Contractor and part-time engagement
• Compensation of $50 to $100 USD per hour
• Expected commitment of 20+ hours per week

About AI Training and Model Evaluation

AI training is the human side of building artificial intelligence. Technical specialists create realistic tasks, review model behavior, and design evaluations that show whether AI systems can perform useful work reliably.

In this role, your cloud engineering expertise will help evaluate whether AI systems can design, deploy, troubleshoot, secure, scale, and recover production-grade infrastructure.

• Contribute to cutting-edge AI development
• Apply real-world engineering judgment to model evaluation
• Work remotely with flexible contractor scheduling
• Help shape how advanced AI systems handle operational challenges

The Role

OpenTrain is seeking a Backend Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure AI Evaluation specialist to build reinforcement learning environments for AI model training and evaluation. You will create realistic, reproducible environments and operational scenarios that test AI proficiency across backend engineering, cloud architecture, DevOps automation, and infrastructure recovery.

This role is listed at the entry level, but it requires substantial practical knowledge of production cloud systems, distributed architecture, automation, and technical evaluation.

• Work in English
• Support AI training and evaluation through backend and cloud engineering
• Design environments that are scalable, secure, maintainable, and reproducible
• No prior AI experience is required when the backend and cloud infrastructure expertise is present

What You'll Do

You will design and implement infrastructure environments that expose how AI systems respond to realistic production requirements and failures. Your work will combine implementation, testing, documentation, and careful definition of expected technical outcomes.

• Design cloud infrastructure environments for systems design, deployment, and troubleshooting evaluation
• Create scenarios involving distributed systems, networking, IAM, message queues, persistent storage, and observability
• Model rolling deployments and disaster-recovery workflows
• Develop deterministic validation tests and golden reference solutions
• Produce intentionally defective infrastructure variants and failure scenarios
• Evaluate model recovery strategies against realistic operational problems
• Document architecture, edge cases, and operational flows
• Refine environment specifications and acceptance criteria with technical collaborators
• Apply infrastructure automation and DevOps practices to deliver scalable evaluation systems

Required Skills and Experience

You should be able to apply strong backend programming and production infrastructure experience to the design of technically rigorous AI evaluation environments. The role requires practical command of distributed systems and the operational tools used to build and maintain them.

• Backend programming proficiency in at least one of C++, Python, Rust, Go, Java, or JavaScript
• Production experience designing, scaling, and securing distributed cloud systems
• Practical experience with DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure automation tools
• Strong understanding of networking, identity and access management, queues, durable storage, and observability
• Experience with deployments and disaster recovery in production-grade environments
• Ability to create deterministic validation tests and golden reference solutions
• Ability to design intentionally defective infrastructure variants and realistic failure scenarios
• Sound judgment when defining acceptance criteria and recovery behavior
• Ability to document architecture, edge cases, and operational flows clearly

Who Should Apply

This opportunity is suited to backend engineers, cloud infrastructure engineers, and DevOps practitioners who enjoy turning complex production behavior into clear, testable scenarios. It may also fit engineers who have not worked in AI before but bring strong systems and infrastructure expertise.

The work is especially relevant if you are comfortable reasoning about failure modes, security, scalability, deterministic testing, and the operational behavior of distributed cloud systems.

• Backend engineers with experience in a listed programming language
• Cloud and DevOps professionals who have operated distributed systems
• Engineers skilled in CI/CD, automation, networking, IAM, and storage
• Technical contributors who can define precise tests and acceptance criteria
• Candidates interested in applying engineering expertise to AI model evaluation

How the Engagement Works

This is a remote, part-time contractor opportunity open worldwide. The expected time requirement is 20 or more hours per week, with compensation ranging from $50 to $100 USD per hour.

Create your free OpenTrain account to build a profile, present your technical experience, and apply for this opportunity. OpenTrain helps contributors grow a durable portfolio of work in AI training and data labeling.

• Engagement type: Contractor and part time
• Location: Worldwide and fully remote
• Language: English
• Time requirement: 20+ hours per week
• Pay: $50 to $100 USD per hour
• Apply through OpenTrain