Backend Engineer (Golang + Python)

We're hiring a remote, contract-based Backend Engineer who can build and run production systems end-to-end. You'll own backend services (Go + Python), server setup, backend infrastructure, and cloud cost optimization with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, and performance-per-dollar.
Responsibilities:
Build, deploy, and maintain production backend services in Golang and Python.
Design scalable architectures: stateless services, queues, caching, DB scaling, horizontal scaling, and load balancing.
Own backend infra end-to-end: server setup, deployments, rollbacks, monitoring, alerting, and incident response.
Set up and maintain cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure): networking, IAM, security groups, VPC/VNet, secrets, and backups.
Improve performance and reliability: profiling, p95 latency reduction, throughput, resilience, and graceful degradation.
Drive cost optimization: right-sizing, autoscaling, storage tuning, caching strategy, data transfer reduction, and reserved/savings plans.
Implement observability: metrics, logs, tracing, dashboards, SLOs, and alerting.
Ensure security and hygiene: least privilege, patching, key rotation, audit logs, and basic threat modeling.
Requirements:
Strong production experience with Golang (concurrency, profiling/pprof, performance tuning).
Strong production experience with Python (backend services, async/task systems, and performance awareness).
Hands-on Linux server management (debugging, networking basics, processes, memory, and disk I/O).
Experience with backend infrastructure and cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP/Azure).
Proven ability to design systems that scale horizontally across multiple servers/instances.
Track record of improving cost efficiency without breaking SLOs (latency/uptime).
Nice to have:
Docker and Kubernetes (or strong containerization and orchestration experience).
Terraform/Pulumi/CloudFormation (Infrastructure-as-Code).
Postgres/MySQL at scale; Redis; Kafka/RabbitMQ/SQS; CDN and edge caching.
Security best practices: WAF, rate limits, secure secrets management, and hardening.
Experience with high-throughput systems (1,000+ RPS or large request volumes).

Experience
3-6 yrs