Lead Backend Engineer (Python)

Job Title: Lead Backend Engineer (Python)
Location: Woodlawn- MD- 5 days onsite F2F final round, only locals
Experience Level: 12+ years' experience is must
Key Required Skills:

• Experience building, scaling, and maintaining production-grade Python applications, AI and chatbot

Position Description:

• Ensure chatbot reliability, safety, and compliance through moderation, guardrails, and abuse prevention.
• Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting to support production reliability and rapid issue resolution.
• Design and analyze A/B tests to evaluate the impact of changes to chatbot prompts, models, or features.
• Lead code reviews and enforce best practices to maintain high engineering standards.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, cloud deployments, and infrastructure decisions supporting high availability.
• Evaluate and adopt new AI technologies and architectural improvements to support long-term scalability.
• Be proactive, adaptable, and highly engaged communicate clearly, raise risks early, and collaborate effectively to deliver high-quality code at speed.
• Communicate with stakeholders and support user feedback.
• Design, implement, and maintain relational and/or NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB) to support chatbot functionality, session management, and knowledge base storage.
• Optimize database queries and ensure data integrity, security, and scalability.
• Manage document indexing and updates in the knowledge base to ensure accurate and efficient retrieval.

Skills Requirements - Foundation for Success (Basic Qualifications):

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering or a related field.
• Masters or Doctorate degree may substitute for required experience
• 10+ years of experience building, scaling, and maintaining production-grade Python applications.

Factors To Help You Shine (Required Skills):

• Selected candidate must be able to obtain and maintain a public trust clearance
• Selected candidate must be willing to work on-site in Woodlawn, MD 5 days a week
• Deep expertise building, scaling, and maintaining production-grade Python applications.
• Understanding of encryption, secure data storage, and transmission (SSL/TLS).
• Experience implementing secure login systems (e.g., OAuth2, SAML, Multi-Factor Authentication).
• Experience with testing frameworks.
• Experience with relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and/or NoSQL databases (MongoDB).
• Familiarity with automated deployment tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions).
• Strong Python backend engineering experience including API design, asynchronous programming, and system integration.
• Ability to write clear technical documentation for maintainability and compliance.
• Proficiency in managing and querying both relational databases and vector databases for semantic search.
• Hands-on experience working with AI and LLMs in production environments.
• Solid understanding of key AI/LLM concepts, including prompt engineering, RAG, AI agents, context management, evaluation and structured outputs.
• Understanding of how to measure LLM performance using frameworks like Ragas, TruLens, or Arize Phoenix to evaluate faithfulness, relevance, and safety.
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems and make sound architectural decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Strong communication skills with a proven ability to be vocal, engaged, collaborative, proactive, and adaptable within cross-functional teams.

How To Stand Out From The Crowd (Desired Skills):

• Experience with DevOps practices, including CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, containerization, monitoring, and logging.
• Prior experience building or operating public-facing, high-availability, or regulated systems.
• Analyze logs and user interactions to identify usage patterns, common queries, and areas for improvement.
• Provide recommendations for enhancements based on data analysis to improve chatbot reliability, accuracy, and user experience.
• Familiarity with AI safety, moderation, and responsible AI practices.
• Experience working in fast paced, "startup-like" environments.

For applications and inquiries, contact: [email protected]