Lead Python Engineer

Job title: Python Lead / Lead Python Engineer

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Employment type: Full-time

Experience: 10+ years

Joining preference: Immediate joiners or candidates with a very short notice period.

About the Role

We are looking for a highly experienced, hands-on Python Lead to drive technical feasibility. application architecture, backend development, and end-to-end product delivery.

This is a player-coach role combining hands-on Python engineering with technical leadership. You will evaluate new product ideas, build proof of concepts (PoCs), make architecture decisions, lead a team of engineers, and take applications from feasibility to production.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct technical feasibility studies, PoCs, and build-versus-buy evaluations.
• Prepare feasibility reports with effort estimates, costs, risks, and go/no-go recommendations.
• Design scalable, secure, and maintainable Python applications and REST APIs.
• Develop backend services using Python and frameworks such as FastAPI, Django, or Flask.
• Own application architecture, code quality, performance optimization, and production releases.
• Work with PostgreSQL / MySQL, Redis / MongoDB, task queues, and message brokers.
• Manage cloud deployments, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and production operations.
• Lead, mentor, and guide a team of 3–6 engineers.
• Drive code reviews, sprint planning, technical documentation, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with the Founder / CTO and stakeholders to ensure timely product delivery.

Requirements

Mandatory Skills

• 10+ years of overall software engineering experience.
• 6+ years of hands-on production experience with Python 3.x.
• Strong experience with FastAPI, Django, or Flask and REST API development.
• Experience designing and delivering at least two production systems end to end.
• Proven experience in technical feasibility studies and PoCs.
• Strong database knowledge: PostgreSQL or MySQL, plus Redis or MongoDB.
• Experience with Celery / RQ or equivalent task queues and RabbitMQ / Kafka / SQS.
• Production experience with AWS / Azure / GCP, Docker, and CI/CD.
• Hands-on experience with pytest, code quality tools, and Python type checking.
• Knowledge of application security, OAuth2 / JWT, OWASP Top 10, and access control.
• At least 2 years of experience leading 3+ engineers.
• Strong communication, problem-solving, estimation, and delivery ownership skills.

Good-to-Have Skills

• GenAI / LLM integrations, OpenAI / Anthropic APIs, RAG, and vector databases.
• Applied cryptography, key management, and secure licensing mechanisms.
• Kubernetes, Terraform, Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry.
• React / Next.js familiarity and performance optimization using Rust, Cython, or Go.
• Experience taking products from concept to production and first customers.