AI/Backend Engineer (Gifting Recommendation Engine) MVP

About the Project Gift Well is a curated personal gifting service that helps people show up for the people they love. We are building the MVP of our web app, which uses AI to help users generate personalized gift recommendations based on recipient profiles, occasions, budgets, and relationship context. We are looking for an experienced AI/backend engineer to build the core recommendation engine and API layer that powers the Gift Well member experience. What You Will Build The AI recommendation engine takes structured user input (recipient details, occasion, budget, relationship type, and vibe descriptors) and returns a set of curated gift recommendations drawn from our product catalog. Specifically: Design and implement the prompt architecture and LLM integration (Anthropic Claude or OpenAI GPT) that processes recipient profiles and returns structured gift suggestions • Build a clean REST API (Python/FastAPI preferred) that the frontend can call with user inputs and receive formatted recommendations • Connect the AI layer to a product catalog database (we will provide initial catalog data in a structured format) • Implement basic filtering logic for budget range, occasion type, and recipient category • Set up error handling, rate limiting, and basic logging • Document the API clearly so a frontend developer can integrate without friction Skills Required • Demonstrated experience building with LLM APIs (Anthropic or OpenAI) • Strong Python backend experience, FastAPI or Flask • Comfortable working with structured data and basic database queries (PostgreSQL or similar) • Experience designing prompt systems for recommendation or personalization use cases • Clean code, clear documentation, ability to work asynchronously Nice to Have • Experience with e-commerce or product recommendation systems • Familiarity with Supabase or Firebase for lightweight backend infrastructure • Prior startup or MVP experience (you know how to make smart tradeoffs at early stage)