Position Overview
We're seeking a Senior Backend Developer with deep Django expertise and technical leadership experience to architect scalable systems.
The ideal candidate will be a technical entrepreneur who can design robust backend architectures, make strategic technology decisions, and mentor engineering teams while translating complex business requirements into efficient, maintainable code
Responsibilities
- Architect scalable systems that can grow from hundreds to millions of users
- Make critical technical decisions that balance speed, cost, and long-term maintainability
- Lead technical planning and roadmap discussions with business stakeholders
- Evaluate and integrate new technologies based on business impact, not just technical merit
- Build and mentor high-performing engineering teams in a resource-constrained environment
- Translate complex agricultural domain problems into elegant technical solutions
- Design data architectures that support both current needs and future business expansion
- Establish engineering practices that maximize team velocity without sacrificing quality
- Drive technical initiatives that directly contribute to company growth and user acquisition
- Partner with leadership to make build-vs-buy decisions and resource allocation
- Implement monitoring and alerting systems that prevent business-critical failures
- Lead incident response and post-mortem processes that improve system resilience
Requirements:
Technical Skills
- Expert-level Django/Python backend development
- Advanced database design and optimization
- Strong understanding of API development
- DevOps experience (Docker, CI/CD, cloud platforms)
- Cloud platform expertise (AWS/GCP)
- System design and scalability planning
- Security best practices and DevSecOps implementation
- Git version control and team collaboration tools
- Experience with data processing and analytics
Experience
- Minimum 5 years of backend development experience
- Proven track record of leading technical projects
- Experience mentoring developers and building teams
- Background in startup or scale-up environments
- Demonstrated ability to translate business needs into technical solutions
- Previous experience with system architecture and technical leadership
Soft Skills
- Ability to engage with non-technical stakeholders and translate business requirements into technical specifications
- Comfortable collaborating beyond your core expertise to cover full-stack needs in a lean team.
- Mission-driven mindset (interest in agriculture/food systems or social impact).
- Comfort working in a hybrid culture (Swiss HQ + East African hub).
- Strong sense of ownership and initiative in a small, high-trust team.
- Business-minded technical decision making that considers ROI and company objectives
- Ability to communicate technical complexity to non-technical stakeholders.
- Experience managing technical debt while delivering features under tight deadlines
- Strong instincts for when to optimize vs when to ship quickly in startup environments
- Capability to evaluate technical risks and their business implications
- Leadership skills to guide teams through ambiguous problems with limited resources
- Strategic thinking that balances short-term delivery with long-term architectural health
- Entrepreneurial mindset with understanding of how technology drives business value