Principal Full Stack Engineer (Python/Django)

Join the revolution in hospitality tech!

Liven is a leading global data, technology, and customer experience provider for the hospitality industry. From humble beginnings, we have grown to serve over 6,000 venues and millions of diners across Australia, the USA, and Southeast Asia, processing over 120 million transactions worth more than $3 billion (AUD) annually.

At Liven, our platform is built to help hospitality businesses save more and work smarter by seamlessly integrating every aspect of their operations — from ordering and payments to back-of-house management.

Driven by a deep passion for the hospitality industry, we continuously innovate to elevate the experience for both venues and their guests. Our solutions are powered by AI-enriched insights and automated workflows, enabling smarter decision-making and smoother operations at scale.

We’re proud to be an AI-first organisation. By automating repetitive tasks, we free up space for our teams — and our customers — to focus on what truly matters: solving complex problems, delighting guests, and driving meaningful growth.
Key Milestones:

• Expansion: Acquired OrderUp, Abacus, Zeemart, Copper and Nomnie forming Asia Pacific’s largest end-to-end group in hospitality technology.
• Global Reach: Headquartered across major cities including Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Singapore, Bali, Jakarta, New York, and India.

If you're someone who thrives on creativity, bold thinking, and using technology to make things better, faster, and smarter — you’ll feel right at home here.

Here’s a quick glimpse of Liven: 

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• You can Visit Blog
• Acquisition News

About the role
As Liven’s Lead Full Stack Engineer, you’ll be our technical North Star — guiding architectural decisions, scaling backend systems, and helping shape the future of our Django-based platform. You’ll lead the evolution of our core infrastructure to support millions of real-time transactions while delivering next-gen product experiences powered by AI and data.

This is a deeply technical, backend-focused leadership role — ideal for an experienced engineer with deep Python/Django expertise, a passion for clean architecture, and a track record of scaling systems in complex environments.

What you'll do

• Lead the modernisation and scaling of our core platform, with a focus on Django and Python services
• Architect, design, and build secure, scalable full-stack systems with Django + modern frontend frameworks
• Drive backend-first engineering best practices across teams: service boundaries, contracts, and shared libs
• Build and maintain high-performance APIs (REST, GraphQL, WebSockets) to power real-time user experiences
• Deploy event-driven microservices architecture (Kafka / PubSub) and data pipelines
• Integrate AI workflows (code generation, anomaly detection, smart APIs) into the platform
• Partner with Data and AI teams to surface ML-driven insights across the product
• Ensure observability and operational excellence with CI/CD, testing, and monitoring tooling
• Champion backend performance, database optimisation, and uptime (99.9%+)
• Lead engineering rituals — code reviews, mentoring, and architectural decision-making
• Raise the bar on engineering quality and delivery velocity across squads

Qualifications

• 7+ years of backend/full-stack engineering experience, with deep Python (Django) expertise
• Proven success scaling large distributed systems and backend infrastructure
• Strong grasp of API design, event-driven architecture, and asynchronous processing
• Leadership through mentoring, code review, and architectural guidance
• Experience with DevOps tooling, CI/CD, containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Strong database fundamentals — PostgreSQL, Redis, NoSQL, performance tuning
• Familiar with testing and quality frameworks: Pytest, Cypress, Jest
• Observability-first mindset — Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus
• Security-aware — OAuth2, JWT, GDPR, secure coding best practices
• Strategic thinker who thrives in high-autonomy, high-impact roles

Won’t-Have

• Project-management-only background — this is a deeply technical role
• Single-stack specialisation (frontend-only or backend-only)

Our stack

• Backend: Python (Django), Node.js, Express
• Frontend: React, TypeScript, Next.js
• Databases: PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB
• Infrastructure: Docker, Kubernetes, AWS ECS, GCP
• CI/CD & Testing: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Pytest, Cypress, Jest
• Monitoring: Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus
• AI Tools: GitHub Copilot, AWS CodeWhisperer
• APIs: REST, GraphQL, WebSockets

• Experience leading Django monolith → microservices transformations
• Exposure to multi-product platforms or multi-tenant SaaS environments
• Familiarity with GraphQL federation, caching strategies, and cost-optimised cloud architecture
• Open-source contributions or technical blogging
• AI/ML product integration experience