Sr. Backend Developer

Job Title: Senior Backend Developer Lead Engineer

Location:

Department:

Reporting To:

Experience:

Company Profile

Ken Research

• Research & consulting automation
• Expert network workflows
• Data pipelines & intelligence systems
• AI-enabled tools for insight generation
• Customer portals & internal delivery productivity solutions

engineering excellence, speed, automation, and system reliability

Role Summary

Senior Backend Developer (Lead Engineer)

Key Responsibilities

1. Backend Engineering & Architecture

• Architect, build, and optimize backend systems using

  Python, Django, DRF

• Develop scalable microservices and REST APIs with secure, modular design
• Manage production deployments using

  Gunicorn, Nginx, Docker, Linux

• Build background workers for asynchronous tasks (Celery/RQ/SQS)
• Maintain clean, testable, high-performance backend code

2. Database, Search & Performance Optimization

• Design & optimize relational databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL)
• Implement caching (Redis), indexing, and query optimization
• Integrate and maintain

  Elasticsearch

  for scalable search
• Improve system performance, concurrency handling, and reliability

3. API Engineering & Integrations

• Build secure APIs for internal and external integrations
• Implement authentication, RBAC, rate-limiting, throttling
• Integrate AI/LLM services for automation and insight workflows (preferred)
• Build backend layers for portals, dashboards, workflows, and internal tools

4. CI/CD, DevOps & System Reliability

• Set up and manage CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions / Jenkins / GitLab)
• Ensure automated deployments, rollback mechanisms, and environment stability
• Implement logging, monitoring, and error tracking (Sentry/ELK Stack)
• Support scalable infrastructure and uptime improvements

5. Collaboration, Ownership & Leadership

• Work directly with

  CMO/CDO

  on product vision, system architecture, and release planning
• Collaborate with product, frontend, DevOps, analytics, and LLM teams
• Review code, enforce engineering guidelines, maintain documentation
• Mentor junior backend developers and build internal engineering capability
• Operate with complete ownership from planning development deployment

Preferred Technical Exposure (Value-Add)

(Not mandatory but strongly preferred)

• Elasticsearch advanced features (analyzers, scoring, boosting)
• LLM/AI integrations: OpenAI, Gemini, Claude
• Embeddings, vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma)
• Event-driven systems, automation, workflow orchestration
• Cloud services (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Kubernetes familiarity

Qualifications & Skills Required

Education

• Bachelor’s/Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field

Experience

• 3+ years

  hands-on backend engineering
• Deep experience with

  Python, Django, DRF

• Experience with

  CI/CD, Elasticsearch, Docker, Linux, Redis

• Prior experience deploying production systems

Technical Skills

• Django, DRF, Python
• PostgreSQL/MySQL
• Elasticsearch
• Redis, Celery/RQ
• CI/CD pipelines
• Git/GitHub, Docker, Linux
• API design & microservices architecture
• System debugging & performance optimization

Soft Skills & Mindset

• High accountability and ownership
• Startup mindset: speed, autonomy, clarity
• Strong communication and cross-team collaboration
• Ability to break down complex problems into actionable development tasks
• Attention to detail and execution discipline

Outcome Expectations (KPI Level)

Engineering KPIs

• API uptime, stability, and response-time improvements
• Reduction in production issues & bug counts
• Measurable improvements in backend performance

Delivery KPIs

• On-time delivery of backend modules
• Zero-regression CI/CD releases
• Successful integration of Elasticsearch & LLM workflows

System KPIs

• Scalability enhancements
• Infrastructure reliability & monitoring improvements