Senior Python Backend Developer (Platform)

We're looking for a Senior Python Backend Developer to join the Platform team and take ownership of core backend systems powering Aghanim — a direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform that helps mobile game developers monetize outside app stores. We act as a Merchant of Record, handling payments, compliance, and taxation across 200+ territories, while providing game studios with tools for LiveOps automation, player segmentation, and community engagement.

The platform serves 100+ live games through customizable Game Hubs (DTC web stores), in-game offers, subscriptions, and virtual currency systems — all with real-money transactions requiring high reliability and fraud protection.

The codebase follows domain-driven design with 60+ business domains, strict code quality standards, and AI-assisted development as a standard part of the workflow. You'll work across a modern Python stack — FastAPI, SQLAlchemy v2, PostgreSQL, Redis — with a heavy integration layer connecting game backends, payment providers, and external services.

Role Responsibilities

1. Backend Architecture and System Design

• Design and implement backend systems and business domains end-to-end

• Define domain boundaries, data models, and API contracts

• Make architectural decisions aligned with scalability, reliability, and maintainability

• Contribute to long-term evolution of system architecture and technical standards

1. Backend Development

• Develop backend services using Python with a focus on clean, maintainable, and testable code

• Build APIs, background workers, and event-driven components with clear layered architecture

• Implement integrations with external services, including payment providers and game backends

• Handle complex workflows related to transactions, state management, and system interactions

1. Data and Infrastructure

• Design and optimize database schemas and queries in PostgreSQL

• Implement caching, rate limiting, and distributed coordination using Redis

• Ensure efficient handling of high-load scenarios and large-scale data processing

1. Reliability and Testing

• Define and implement testing strategies, including unit, integration, and functional tests

• Ensure high reliability of production systems, especially in payment-related flows

• Debug and resolve complex production issues with a focus on root cause analysis

• Contribute to observability through logging, metrics, and monitoring

1. Cross-functional Collaboration and Leadership

• Collaborate with engineering and product teams on feature design and delivery

• Conduct code reviews and mentor other developers

• Drive engineering best practices and maintain high code quality standards

• Contribute to technical decision-making and team-level architecture discussions

Required Qualifications

• Python 5+ years of commercial experience.

• Strong experience with FastAPI or similar async frameworks (Starlette, aiohttp).

• Deep knowledge of SQLAlchemy (preferably v2) — ORM internals, relationships, performance tuning, migrations (Alembic).

• PostgreSQL — advanced query optimization, indexing strategies, schema design, partitioning.

• Redis — caching strategies, rate limiting, distributed locks, pub/sub patterns.

• Proven experience designing and building REST APIs with clear layered architecture.

• Pydantic — data validation, serialization, complex schema design.

• Strong understanding of async/await patterns, concurrency, and event loops in Python.

• Experience integrating with third-party APIs and building reliable webhook/callback systems.

• Experience designing systems and making architectural decisions — choosing patterns, defining domain boundaries, managing technical debt.

• Solid testing culture: pytest, async tests, fixtures, factories, coverage strategy.

• Experience mentoring developers and conducting meaningful code reviews.

• Git, CI/CD, trunk-based or feature-branch workflows.

• AI: confident use of AI tools in daily development — from code generation and refactoring to debugging, test writing, and code review; with an understanding of risks (hallucinations, security, licensing) and mandatory result validation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Google Cloud services (BigQuery, Firestore, Pub/Sub, BigTable, Cloud Storage).

• Experience with background job processing (ARQ, Celery, or similar).

• Experience with webhook delivery systems, retry strategies, and idempotency.

• Experience with Datadog, Sentry, or similar observability tools.

• Experience in gaming, e-commerce, or fintech domains.

• Experience building multi-tenant SaaS platforms.

• Experience with event-driven architecture and message queues.

• Experience with high-load systems and horizontal scaling.

What Success Looks Like

• New features and domains are delivered end-to-end with clean architecture, solid test coverage, and no reliability regressions.

• Integrations with game backends and external services work reliably under production load.

• Codebase quality stays high — your code reviews and mentoring raise the bar for the team.

• Production incidents in your areas are rare, and when they happen, they're resolved quickly with permanent fixes.

• You're a go-to person for architectural decisions and technical design within the team.

Why Join Us

• Modern Python stack (3.13, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy v2) with real architectural ownership.

• Small team (15–20 engineers) with high autonomy and fast decision-making.

• Strict engineering culture: enforced code standards, comprehensive test guidelines, AI-assisted development.

• Direct impact on a platform serving 100+ live games with real-money transactions across 200+ territories.

• Mission-driven company helping game developers achieve financial independence from app stores.

• Opportunity to shape backend architecture, engineering practices, and team standards in a fast-growing startup.

Aghanim helps game developers achieve financial and creative independence by providing the solutions they need to launch, run, and grow their businesses.