Senior Backend Python Engineer (Remote)

About the Role: This staffing engagement will have you working for a small studio team inside a Product Consultancy. The consultancy was founded two years ago by a multi-year Silicon Valley veteran with a background in Defence, AI, and Satellite Startups. He knows how to lead teams and drive innovation. This work is for their client, a large private equity firm building products that are changing the US education system.

We are searching for a staff augmentation role. We’re forming a product innovation team focused on AI-first product development for our client. The aim is to minimize manual coding by using tools like Cursor with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Copilot, and code generation from drawings. This project starts with a client but is intended to be a long-term initiative. We need engineers who are naturally inclined towards this AI-centric approach. It’s a challenging role, requiring a lot of resilience and flexibility, as the tools are still maturing and the client’s demands will be fast-paced.

The role we are looking for is an Python Engineer. You’ll be the fourth member of an existing three-person team that includes an AI-first Product Manager, AI-first Frontend Engineer, and AI-first Director of Engineering. Together, you’ll build and deploy full-scale applications in weekly sprints.

About You: You are someone who loves keeping up with modern tools, loves moving fast and building cool things and is ready to take on any challenge. You are a senior Python engineer who has started adopting modern AI tools to become faster and more efficient. You love keeping up with modern tools, thrive in a fast-paced environment, and enjoy building exciting things. You love working on a mix of mobile app development and API development (with a focus on backend code in Python) using tools like Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

From novel interactive features to CI/CD to unit tests to code reviews to vulnerability scans, you are someone who is on the pulse of the latest AI developer tools to improve their job and capabilities.

Onboarding

• You will be expected to proactively onboard yourself, and know how to get a python server running.

Key Responsibilities

• Do what-ever-it-takes to complete agreed upon tasks within one week
• Stay updated with the latest advancements in AI tools that enable engineers to be more productive (user not builder of AI)
• Able to work effectively under pressure, with a get-it-done attitude
• Use AI prompts to generate production-level Python code, along with unit and integration tests. We expect you to explore code, propose solutions, prompt to generate code, review and make updates and test code (through prompting) to achieve the week’s objective.
• Use PyTest to test your code, there are no QA testers.
• Review, re-prompt and correct bugs found in generated code via code reviews in order to fulfill the engineering tasks for the week
• Join short daily standup calls, and planning call at the beginning of the week. Send regular daily updates in slack channel on your work progress, what you are doing next, and where you need help.
• Merge PR yourself, and be responsible for deploying to all environments and handling any production issues.
• Be senior enough that you understand how the high level features break down into work products. This is not a role where the engineer blindly implements the tickets work.
• Use Linear as project management software.
• Deploy server-side APIs in Python (we use Heroku). We have production and staging environment. Use trunk-based development.
• Document and maintain learnings, processes and procedures
• Maintain quality standards and make sure that all products meet customer expectations

Qualifications

• Advanced English level (MANDATORY).
• 5+ years of experience working with Python, with a deep understanding of its libraries and frameworks (we use FastAPI, SqlAchemy, Alembic)
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to quickly adapt and resolve issues in changing environments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• You will need to provide your own workspace with reliable internet service.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision while being a reliable collaborator.
• Frequent and proactive communication with team members via Slack
• Highly organized and proficient in task management, with the ability to be accountable for your time in a fully remote setting.
• Team player willing to go beyond your role to support the broader team and work collaboratively in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to research effectively and independently resolve challenges as you work.
• Experience with cloud platforms (we use Heroku) and code to production.
• Experience with version control (we use Github) and collaborative development workflows.

Benefits/Compensation

• Fully remote position
• Full-Time position – we expect 40h of active work time.
• Working hours are 9:00 am – 6:00 pm CST
• Contract-based employment
• Starting at $5,000 – $8,500 depending on qualifications
• There are currently NO formal benefits packages available (health insurance, retirement plans, not billable PTO, not billable Sick Days but we have no problem if you want to work additional hours after to make up for it).