Senior Python Developer - AWS

Senior Python Developer - AWS & Distributed Systems
AWS | Integration Systems | 10+ Years | Multiple Openings
The Work
You will build and evolve a large-scale integration platform for a leading player in the distribution and e-commerce industry, connecting customer-facing storefronts with warehouse and enterprise systems across order management, inventory synchronization, product catalogs, and system interoperability.
Python is your primary engineering language. You will build production-grade applications and services, work hands-on with AWS, and make important decisions about how the platform should be designed and operated. This includes deciding what should run on Lambda versus a container, what should be event-driven versus synchronous, and what should be built in-house versus bought.
As a senior engineer, you will also take ownership of important architectural decisions and help other engineers, including our Node.js/TypeScript team, implement those decisions properly. You do not need to be a Python-only engineer. You should be comfortable reaching for Node.js or another technology when the problem calls for it.
Note: We currently have two openings for this role. One requires a valid AWS certification as a condition of hire; the other does not. Both openings require the same depth of real, hands-on AWS experience described below. If you are unsure which opening fits you, apply anyway and mention your certification status.
What You Will Own
Build and evolve Python applications and services that form part of the integration platform
Help design how storefronts, warehouse systems, and enterprise systems communicate and stay in sync at production scale
Translate business and product requirements into practical technical designs
Own and influence architectural decisions across APIs, event-driven systems, asynchronous processing, databases, messaging, caching, security, and observability
Design and implement AWS infrastructure across serverless and containerized workloads, including Lambda, API Gateway, S3, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, DynamoDB, RDS, CloudWatch, IAM, and ECS/EKS where relevant
Make trade-offs between serverless, containerized, and traditional deployment models based on cost, performance, scalability, and maintainability
Choose Python frameworks and libraries based on the problem at hand rather than defaulting to familiar tools
Contribute to engineering standards and design reviews for critical systems such as order management and inventory synchronization
Mentor engineers and help raise the technical quality of the wider engineering team, including the Node.js/TypeScript team
Work directly with Product and Business leadership on technical strategy and roadmap decisions
Investigate production problems and use what you learn to improve system design and engineering practices
Must-Have
Python Engineering
Strong production experience designing and building Python applications and services, not just scripting or maintenance work
Working understanding of Python internals, including concurrency, performance, testing, packaging, and long-term maintainability
Experience building backend services and APIs that operate in production
Systems & Architecture
Experience designing or significantly influencing distributed, production-grade systems
Solid grounding in API design, event-driven architecture, asynchronous processing, databases, messaging, caching, security, and observability
Ability to evaluate architectural trade-offs and explain why one approach is better for a particular problem
Experience taking ownership of technical decisions and seeing them through implementation and production
AWS
Real, hands-on production experience with AWS Lambda and serverless architecture, not lab exercises or side projects
Working fluency across core AWS services including API Gateway, S3, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, DynamoDB, RDS, CloudWatch, IAM, and ECS/EKS
Understanding of how AWS services combine into a coherent production architecture rather than experience limited to individual services
For one of our two openings, a current AWS certification is mandatory. For the other, certification is not required, but the depth of AWS experience must be equivalent
Breadth
Professional experience with Node.js/TypeScript, strong enough to understand and contribute to production services
Comfort picking up an unfamiliar technology when the problem requires it rather than defaulting to what you already know
Technical Leadership
Experience mentoring engineers, guiding technical initiatives, or influencing engineering direction
Ability to communicate technical decisions and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Good to Have
AWS certifications beyond the certification required for the applicable opening
Hands-on Terraform or AWS CDK experience
Docker and Kubernetes experience
CI/CD and modern DevOps practices
Microservices and event-driven architecture at scale
Experience in product engineering or fast-paced technology environments
Familiarity with AI-assisted or agentic software engineering tools and workflows
What Strong Looks Like Here
You can take a business requirement and turn it into a practical system design with clear trade-offs
You have built production Python systems where performance, reliability, scalability, and maintainability mattered
When you recommend Lambda over a container, or the reverse, you can explain the operational and technical reasoning behind the decision
You have experienced a real production failure, understood why it happened, and changed your engineering approach as a result
You can explain an architectural decision clearly enough for another engineer to implement it correctly
You are comfortable working across Python, Node.js, AWS, and other technologies without being tied to a particular stack
You think about how your technical decisions affect the engineers who build, operate, and maintain the system
Who This Is Not For
Candidates whose AWS experience is limited to managed platforms or PaaS abstractions without meaningful hands-on experience with AWS services
Candidates who have configured serverless functions for side projects but have never operated serverless systems in production
Candidates whose Python experience is primarily scripting, automation, or maintenance rather than production application development
Candidates looking for a narrowly scoped individual contributor role with no mentoring or technical leadership responsibility
Candidates with extensive experience but little evidence of owning or significantly influencing technical decisions
Candidates who think about individual services in isolation without considering how their decisions affect the wider system and the engineers building against it

Work arrangement
No