Posted today
Senior Data/Platform Engineer
Remote (Latin America-based)
Compensation: $5,000 - $7,000 USD/month
Full-time, US Eastern hours overlap preferred, Contractor
Tech Stack: PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Node.js, TypeScript, OpenStreetMap, RAG, LLM pipelines, geospatial data systems
At Near, we connect top talent in Latin America with exciting remote opportunities at U.S.-based companies. Our mission is to create better lives by fostering a remote work culture that transcends borders.
About the Company:
Our client is an innovative company in the travel-tech and AI sector, building a trip-planning platform that generates complete itineraries based on destination, dates, and traveler interests. Their product is designed around open-source systems and structured place intelligence, helping travelers discover real places, routes, and experiences through a more reliable and community-conscious approach. They are building a thoughtful, mission-driven product that aims to improve how travel discovery works while avoiding the extractive patterns often seen in large travel platforms.
About the Role:
We’re looking for a Senior Data/Platform Engineer who can own the knowledge and retrieval layer behind an AI-powered travel product. You’ll work on the systems that structure, validate, and resolve large volumes of place data, helping ensure downstream trip generation is accurate and grounded in reliable evidence. This role requires someone who is rigorous, highly detail-oriented, and comfortable working through ambiguity to create systems that are trustworthy, scalable, and production-ready.
You Will:
Own and improve the structured knowledge layer behind an AI travel-planning platform
Build and harden entity resolution and deduplication workflows for places, neighborhoods, trails, landmarks, and related geographic entities
Improve extraction pipelines that turn prose and raw source material into structured, queryable data
Design systems so downstream generation relies on pre-built lookups and validated relationships rather than model inference alone
Work with geospatial data, map systems, coordinates, polygons, and spatial logic to support accurate travel and place modeling
Build reliable retrieval and read models used by generation, product display, and maps
Write high-quality SQL and pipeline scripts to support large-scale structured data workflows
Validate data quality through both automated checks and hands-on review of real records
Contribute to trust, validation, and evidence-based data acceptance logic across the platform
Help turn separate data and extraction components into one cohesive production system
About You:
Your Background:
Strong experience as a senior data, platform, or backend engineer
Deep knowledge of PostgreSQL and strong SQL skills
Hands-on experience with PostGIS and map / geospatial systems
Strong experience with Node.js and TypeScript
Experience with entity resolution, deduplication, or knowledge-graph-like data problems
Experience building or improving RAG systems and LLM extraction pipelines
Familiarity with open-source map ecosystems and spatial data concepts
Strong understanding of how to build reliable data pipelines that are structured, scalable, and careful about correctness
Excellent English reading and writing skills
Self-directed, rigorous, and able to work through niche technical challenges with a high quality bar
Comfortable working with ambiguity and solving messy real-world identity and place-data problems
Mission-driven and thoughtful — you care about building products with positive real-world impact
Collaborative and grounded — you work well in small teams and communicate clearly
Practical and detail-oriented — you value correctness and careful execution over speed for its own sake
Nice to Have:
Experience with OpenStreetMap, Foursquare, Wikipedia/Wikidata, or similar open-data ecosystems
Background in travel tech, maps, spatial computing, or location-based consumer products
Experience with gaming, route-based, or world-building products where spatial logic matters
Strong AI product experience beyond simple prompt-based applications
Experience working with large knowledge bases, graph-like systems, or retrieval infrastructure
Familiarity with evidence-first or provenance-based data modeling approaches
Compensation & Benefits:
Compensation: $5,000 - $7,000 USD/month
Benefits:
Flexible PTO policy, approximately 10-15 days per year
Remote contractor role
Full-time schedule with strong overlap with US Eastern time
Candidates are generally expected to use their own equipment, with flexibility to provide hardware if needed