Senior Backend Engineer (Python / Go)Overview
We are seeking a skilled and passionate Senior Backend Engineer to join our team, focusing on the design, development, and maintenance of high-performance, scalable microservices. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in Go (Golang), and a deep understanding of distributed systems architecture.
Essential QualificationsTechnical SkillsSkill CategoryRequirementProficiency LevelProgramming LanguagesPython (Deep expertise with frameworks like FastAPI, Flask, or Django)AdvancedProgramming LanguagesGo (Golang) (Experience building robust, high-concurrency microservices)ExpertMicroservices / ArchitectureDesigning, developing, and deploying RESTful APIsExpertSecurityKeycloak, API authentication, JWTAdvancedDatabasesRealtime analytics (Clickhouse)AdvancedDatabasesRelational databases (MySQL) including complex query optimizationAdvancedDatabasesNoSQL databases (Redis)AdvancedContainerization / OrchestrationKubernetes for deployment and scalingAdvancedContainerization / OrchestrationDocker container buildAdvancedTestingWriting comprehensive unit, integration, and end-to-end testsAdvancedCore Experience7+ years of professional experience in backend software development, with a significant focus on building and operating microservices in a production environment.
Proven ability to work with and contribute to large-scale, distributed systems.
Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) for deployment, monitoring, and scaling.
CI/CD: Experience setting up and maintaining automated deployment pipelines
Observability: Proficiency with monitoring and logging tools
Source Control: Expertise in Git and collaborative workflows
Familiarity with event-driven architectures and streaming data processing
Experience with security best practices in API design (e.g., OAuth 2.0, JWT, input validation)
Knowledge of performance tuning and optimization techniques for both Python and Go applications
Design, implement, and maintain scalable and reliable backend microservices using Go
Collaborate with product managers and front-end teams to define API specifications and integration points
Ensure services are deployed, monitored, and scaled efficiently in a Kubernetes environment
Participate in code reviews, design discussions, and planning sessions
Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues, ensuring high availability and performance
Drive continuous improvement in development processes, tooling, and infrastructure
Has owned at least 1–2 services end-to-end (design → build → deploy → on-call → incident fixes → scaling)
Comfortable with service boundaries, APIs, versioning, backward compatibility, SLAs/SLOs
Can design systems with tradeoffs: latency, throughput, cost, reliability
Patterns: idempotency, retries, timeouts, circuit breakers, async workflows, queues, eventual consistency
Data design: relational vs NoSQL, caching, indexing, migrations, multi-tenant considerations (if relevant)
Can take an ambiguous production issue and drive it to resolution
Uses a structured approach: reproduce → isolate → instrument → hypothesis → validate → fix → prevent
Confident with commands/tools like: ps/top/htop, journalctl, systemctl, netstat/ss, lsof, curl, grep/sed/awk, strace (bonus), log parsing
Understands networking basics (DNS, TLS, ports, timeouts)
Can explain Dockerfiles, layers, multi-stage builds, image size/security
Debug containers: env vars, volumes, entrypoints, networking, resource limits
Strong in structured logging, correlation IDs, trace context
Metrics + tracing + logs as a system
Datadog experience is a must-have , or a very credible equivalent (Prometheus/Grafana + OpenTelemetry + ELK) with proof they can ramp fast
CI/CD, release processes, rollback strategies
Basic security and reliability hygiene (secrets mgmt, least privilege, rate limiting)
$140,000 – $200,000 USD per year (depending on experience and qualifications)
Benefits401(k) retirement plan
Health, dental, and vision insurance
Paid time off (PTO) and company holidays
Flexible work arrangements
Professional development and training support
Performance-based bonuses (if applicable)
Skills Required
- 7+ years of professional backend software development experience
- Significant experience building and operating production microservices
- Advanced Python expertise, including FastAPI, Flask, or Django
- Expert Go experience building high-concurrency microservices
- Expert experience designing, developing, and deploying RESTful APIs
- Experience with large-scale distributed systems
- Experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Experience owning one or more services end-to-end, including deployment, on-call, incident resolution, and scaling
- Strong system design knowledge, including reliability, performance, APIs, data design, and distributed-system tradeoffs
- Strong production debugging and problem-solving skills
- Practical daily-use Linux fundamentals
- Docker and container runtime competence
- Kubernetes deployment and scaling experience
- Strong observability, structured logging, metrics, tracing, and diagnostics experience
- Datadog experience or credible equivalent experience with Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, and ELK
- Security knowledge including API authentication, JWT, OAuth 2.0, input validation, secrets management, and least privilege
- Experience writing unit, integration, and end-to-end tests
- Experience with ClickHouse, MySQL, and Redis
- CI/CD and release process experience
- Git and collaborative source-control workflow expertise
- Familiarity with event-driven architectures and streaming data processing
- Performance tuning and optimization experience for Python and Go applications
What We Do
RapidFort is a software supply chain security company that helps enterprises and government agencies secure containerized applications. Its platform automatically transforms vulnerable container images into hardened, production-ready artifacts, combining container hardening, vulnerability remediation, runtime intelligence, and policy automation. By reducing attack surface and operational complexity, RapidFort enables engineering teams to deliver secure software faster across cloud-native environments and modern development workflows.






