Senior Back-End Engineer

About the role

You will partner with product and design to craft backend features that directly power life-changing learning moments for millions of users. You will own the design, implementation, and evolution of scalable Python and Django services that keep our platform reliable and performant. You will champion data-driven decisions by setting up monitoring, metrics, and A/B test instrumentation to prove impact and drive product improvements. You will act as a technical leader, guiding junior engineers and shaping best practices in test culture, code reviews, and system scalability. You will troubleshoot complex production issues and architect safeguards that preserve system integrity and user trust. You will leverage your AI expertise to explore agentic workflows and propose AI-augmented alternatives that enhance engineering productivity. You will collaborate across disciplines with product managers, designers, and data analysts to turn learning insights into tangible product outcomes.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Develop and own backend features using Python/Django, supporting the creation of new backend services as well as design, create, and/or troubleshoot integrations with third-party vendors.
• Think beyond the code and about our customers, understand their needs and define solutions with the team.
• Balance short-term speed of development with the long-term technical quality of our systems.
• As a Senior Engineer, you will leverage your experience to guide the team in making informed technical decisions, such as continuous improvement of best practices (test culture, code reviews, monitoring and scalability of our tools).
• Familiar and willing to support small JS/TS tasks when needed.
• Expertise in troubleshooting issues, identifying the root cause, mitigating it, and adding setting up safeguards to prevent future issues.
• AI Expertise: You're a forefront user of Agentic AI. You're able to bring hands on experience and start influencing the team beyond code generation; reserving judgment for architecture, business logic, and security, using AI as a thought partner and able to set up quality gates and safety nets to enhance existing engineering workflows and propose AI-native alternatives.
• Exposure to architectural patterns of a large, high-scale web application (e.g., well-designed APIs, high-volume data pipelines, efficient algorithms).
• Work within a cross-functional squad to deliver features through experimentation, iterating quickly based on data, student feedback, and tutor feedback.

Requirements

• Exposure to architectural patterns of a large, high-scale web application (e.g., well-designed APIs, high-volume data pipelines, efficient algorithms);
• AI Expertise: You're a forefront user of Agentic AI. You're able to bring hands on experience and start influencing the team beyond code generation; reserving judgment for architecture, business logic, and security, using AI as a thought partner and able to set up quality gates and safety nets to enhance existing engineering workflows and propose AI-native alternatives.
• Familiar and willing to support small JS/TS tasks when needed.
• Expertise in troubleshooting issues, identifying the root cause, mitigating it, and adding setting up safeguards to prevent future issues.
• High level of self-organization, ownership, and responsibility.
• A great collaborator with excellent verbal and written communication skills. Minimum B2 English level.
• Willingness to be on-call for your squad (1 week every 5 weeks).
• Prior experience with Python is not mandatory; what truly matters is your enthusiasm for learning Python and your ability to adapt quickly to using it for product development.

Practical notes

• An open, collaborative, dynamic and diverse culture;
• A generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com http://preply.com/, Learning & Development budget, and conferences to support your personal and career growth;
• A cutting-edge stack where you'll have access to the best tools and the freedom to experiment;
• A flat hierarchy and strong autonomy;
• 50-60 releases per day leveraging robust CI/CD processes;
• 90%+ adoption of AI coding tools across engineering, with a clear direction toward more autonomous, AI-augmented development at scale;
• Direct access to leadership to shape the engineering roadmap and drive impact;
• Located in beautiful Barcelona;
• Hybrid work model with flexibility to suit your needs;
• Competitive benefits and perks;
• Fast-paced environment where you will wear many hats and grow quickly;
• Opportunities to contribute to technical blogs and share learnings;
• A mission that matters, connecting tutors and learners across 180 countries and 90+ languages;
• Focus on work-life balance and sustainable pace;
• Strong emphasis on monitoring, metrics, and data-driven decision-making;
• You will be part of a team that values psychological safety, curiosity, and continuous improvement;
• You will have the chance to mentor junior engineers and elevate the technical standards of the squad;
• You will experiment with AI tools to accelerate feature delivery while maintaining high quality and security standards;
• You will participate in on-call rotations to support our global user base and ensure system reliability;
• You will engage with diverse stakeholders to align technical solutions with business goals and learner outcomes;
• You will contribute to a culture of transparency, collaboration, and impact at a unicorn-scale company.

Practical notes

• Hours: Flexible within a results-oriented framework; typical overlap hours with Barcelona time zone expected.
• Travel: Occasional travel may be required for team events or company gatherings.
• Visa: Sponsorship may be considered for eligible candidates.
• Deadlines: Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis; early submission is encouraged.