Senior Backend Python Engineer

BenefitsU.S.-based employees have access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan and company contribution, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, and wellbeing benefits, among others. U.S.-based employees also receive, per calendar year, up to 6 scheduled paid holidays. Additionally, eligible hourly/non-exempt and exempt employees accrue up to 112 hours of PTO based on years of service and may annually take up to 8 hours of paid volunteer time. Additional paid sick leave is also provided if required by state or local law.Summary Of PositionSenior Backend Python Engineer with strong systems thinking and API integration experience will design, build, and scale AI-driven network operations platform. Focus on backend services, data pipelines, and integrations with upstream tools, ensuring reliability, performance, and correctness in a production environment.Essential FunctionsBackend Services & APIs Design, implement, and maintain Python-based backend services and APIs (e.g., FastAPI or similar). Build robust integrations with systems such as ServiceNow, Splunk, IPAM, DNS, routing/device lookup tools, and other internal platforms. Ensure services are built with high reliability, concurrency, and performance in mind. Data Pipelines & Workflow OrchestrationDevelop and maintain workflows using Prefect (or similar orchestration tools) for: Document ingestion and preprocessing (e.g., manuals, internal docs). Vectorization pipelines and blob storage management for retrieval. Scheduled and event-driven workflows for ticket summarization, alarm correlation, compliance workflows, etc. Implement automatic retries, logging, and observability for all workflows. Integrations & ToolingIntegrate with a wide range of operational tools (e.g., device lookup, route lookup, trace route, change record lookup). Help transition existing “agentic tools” and internal scripts into MCP-based tools and standardized interfaces over time. Work with internal tool owners (e.g., networking automation platforms) using APIs, HTML scraping, or direct DB access where needed. Quality, Reliability & OptimizationWrite clean, well-structured, testable Python code. Optimize for I/O, disk operations, and concurrency in a high-volume production environment. Contribute to system design for redundancy, fault tolerance, and scalability. Collaboration & DeliveryWork within 2-week sprints, owning tickets from design to deployment and validation with customer teams. Collaborate closely with: Product Owners/Managers on requirements and scope. AI Specialists on model usage, prompting, and agentic coding patterns. NOC and network engineers to deeply understand domain workflows (e.g., shift handover, maintenance windows, alarm correlation). Participate in code reviews and knowledge sharing across lanes. CompetenciesEnsures AccountabilityTech SavvyCommunicates EffectivelyValues DifferencesCustomer FocusResourcefulnessDrives ResultsPlans and PrioritizesDecision QualitySelf-DevelopmentWork EnvironmentThis job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets and fax machines.Physical DemandsThe physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.While performing the duties of this job, the employee in this position frequently communicates with other co-workers/clients who have inquiries about the various projects and other needs. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations. The employee must be able to remain in a stationary position 75% of the time. The employee in this position needs to occasionally move about inside the office to access file cabinets, office machinery, etc. Constantly operate a computer and office machinery such as a calculator, keyboard, copy machine and printer. Frequently moves boxes with equipment weighing up to 25lbs across the building and/or to other offsite buildings for various project needs.Required Education And ExperienceBachelor’s degree in computer science AI, Data Engineering, or related field5+ years of experience as a DevOps, Data Engineering, or AI infrastructureQualificationsStrong Python expertise 5+ years professional software engineering experience (or equivalent). Demonstrated “extreme competency” in Python: data structures, async patterns, error handling, testing, packaging, etc. Backend / Systems EngineeringExperience building backend APIs and services (FastAPI, Flask, Django REST, or similar). Experience with databases (SQL and/or NoSQL) and designing schemas for operational systems. Solid understanding of I/O performance, concurrency, and reliability in distributed systems. Integration ExperienceProven experience integrating with third-party and internal APIs. Comfortable working with REST/JSON, authentication schemes, and potentially HTML scraping or direct DB connectivity when APIs aren’t available.Software Engineering FundamentalsStrong grasp of object-oriented programming, software design principles, and maintainable architecture.Familiarity with CI/CD practices, logging, monitoring, and production support. Communication & OwnershipAbility to work independently in a small, high-trust team, owning features end-to-end. Strong communication skills to work directly with product and operational stakeholders. Preferred Qualifications (Nice To Have)Networking / NOC Domain Knowledge Understanding of basic networking concepts (routes, subnets/CIDR, DNS, IPAM, firewalls, routers, alarms). Experience with NOC environments, monitoring, alarming, maintenance windows, and change management. AI & Agentic Coding ExposureExperience working alongside LLM-based systems (e.g., ChatGPT) for coding, code review, or operations. Familiarity with vector databases, embeddings, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Exposure to agentic coding patterns (AI factories, tool orchestration) is a plus but not a requirement. Tooling & InfrastructureExperience with Prefect or similar workflow orchestrators (Airflow, Dagster, etc.). Experience with Kubernetes and containerized deployments. Prior work integrating with observability/monitoring stacks (e.g., Splunk). AAP/EEO Statement3MD Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on gender, sex, age, race and color, religion, marital status, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status or any other category that is protected by applicable law.Other Duties: Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.