Staff Backend Engineer - Python, FastAPI
About The Employer
Verified employer details & hiring contact info
£130,000 - £165,000 + equity per year
Staff (10+ years)
Hybrid
London
Required Tech Stack & Skills
AI Role Summary
Owen Thomas is hiring a Staff Backend Engineer to lead architecture and distributed systems using Python and FastAPI, driving AI‑enabled FinTech products. Requires 10+ years experience, strong cloud and micro‑services expertise, and offers up to £165k plus equity with hybrid work.
Detailed Role Description
About the Role
Owen Thomas, a B Corp‑registered AI‑focused FinTech backed by Series C funding, is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to shape the technical strategy of its rapidly scaling platform. Based in London with a hybrid model, you will own architecture across multiple teams, driving reliability, scalability, and AI‑enabled services.
Key Responsibilities
- Design and evolve large‑scale backend and distributed systems using Python and FastAPI.
- Define technical strategy for platform, AI, retrieval, and shared engineering services.
- Architect scalable APIs and shared platform capabilities supporting global financial data workflows.
- Lead cross‑team initiatives from concept through production, ensuring high reliability and observability.
- Mentor engineers, set coding standards, and champion best practices in CI/CD, testing, and security.
- Collaborate closely with AI and Retrieval teams on search, RAG, and machine‑learning pipelines.
- Enable developers to work from anywhere up to 90 days per year while maintaining strong team cohesion.
Required Qualifications & Skills
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 5 years building backend services at scale.
- Deep expertise in Python, FastAPI, and asynchronous programming.
- Strong background in designing distributed systems, micro‑services, and event‑driven architectures.
- Hands‑on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
- Proficiency in SQL and NoSQL data stores, and designing high‑throughput APIs.
- Solid understanding of AI/ML integration, retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), and data pipelines.
- Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams.
Nice to Have
- Experience in FinTech or capital markets data processing.
- Knowledge of infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi) and observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).
- Contributions to open‑source projects, especially in the Python or AI ecosystem.
- Prior experience in a staff‑level or lead engineering role within a high‑growth startup.
What We Offer / Benefits
- Competitive base salary up to £165,000 plus equity participation.
- Flexible hybrid work model with up to 90 days per year of remote work abroad.
- Generous paid time off, parental leave, and health & wellbeing stipend.
- Professional development budget, conference attendance, and internal learning programs.
- State‑of‑the‑art engineering environment with modern tech stack and strong DevOps culture.
- Opportunity to shape a market‑leading AI FinTech platform at a pivotal growth stage.
Quick Role Summary
| Job Title | Staff Backend Engineer - Python, FastAPI |
|---|---|
| Experience | 10+ years (Staff level) |
| Work Mode | Hybrid (London office + remote) |
| Estimated CTC | £130,000‑£165,000 + equity |
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