Senior Backend Engineer

Ballpark is our answer to making research faster, easier and more accessible. The majority of people conducting research in companies aren't researchers - so let's create a platform that meets them where they are.

We want to build the 'Canva of research' and create a research platform that is visual, real-time and filled with pre-made templates and tasks so that every team can get deeper insights that leads to better products.

Since our beta launch 18 months ago we've added tons of new Enterprise customers like Monzo, StackOverflow, FEVO and Vodafone.

Last June, we raised a seed round from InReach, Haatch, Caffeinated Capital and Bungalow VC who have invested in amazing companies such as Notion, Soldo and Airtable.

The role

As part of this role you will be primarily responsible for working with a diverse team of top class engineers managing a Python Django backend with a GraphQL API built to power our new Enterprise platform. You will also be required to always think about our product with security in mind. It is required that you have strong knowledge in operations and backend technologies to maintain and build out our backend infrastructure to be lightening fast, secure and highly available.

Ballpark's development team focuses on a culture of curiosity, empathy, learning, knowledge and accountability. We believe in owning and delivering what you work on, always making sure that you give the best experience for our customers and team. You will be given a lot of space to follow your intuition and work with your team to find the best solutions and tools to build a world class product.

Responsibilities

• Own, deliver and innovate on new product, operations and infrastructure development for all our customers.
• Ensure that we are the most secure platform in the space using best practices and align us with ISO enterprise standards.
• Deliver assigned tasks with well defined criteria in addition to being responsible for deploying, smoke testing and monitoring your own code once reviewed and in the live environment.
• Co-own and develop projects with your team mates and peers.
• Take part in paired / group PR review
• Have strong communication and empathy skills. Be happy to give pragmatic feedback graciously between you and your team members. Enjoy teaching as much as you enjoy learning.
• Identify issues with technologies or processes and brings solutions to the attention of their team or tech lead
• Demo your work regularly to your team mates and the wider company
• Be aligned and aware of the company goals and product roadmap and drive towards them in your sprint work.
• Be accountable for key performance and product KPIs to ensure the product is stable, performant and secure.

Technologies we use

These technologies are used in our main stack, if you are familiar with comparable technologies we'd still be happy to talk. For example AWS for ops and infrastructure or Postgres for databases.

• Django backend with GraphQL and Django Rest Framework APIs
• Celery, RabbitMQ queuing system
• Redis caching and data storage
• Google Cloud Platform, Fastly, Netlify
• Google Cloud SQL (MySQL)
• Elastic Search
• Node processes and backend services
• Ansible
• Docker
• Kubernetes
• Linux operating systems and strong command line skills

You should apply if

• The work we’re doing sounds exciting!
• You want to build a platform that’s best in class in the research
• You love working in a team and sharing in the collective success of the business
• You take an interest in writing resilient software across distributed systems
• You have experience working in environments where security is paramount

Our typical process

• Initial phone screen (30 mins)
• Take-home code task (~2 hours)
• On site interview (~3 hours)
  • We may ask you to design a system with us on a whiteboard, or explain one that you’ve already built.
  • We won’t ask you any trick questions or brain teasers, and we definitely won’t ask you to cod

Requirements

• Intimate knowledge of Python & Django
• Knowledge of GraphQL a plus
• Experience with version control systems (git) and cloud based services (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, etc.)
• Self-motivated and accountable
• Strong communication skills (verbal and written)
• Experience in scaling applications

Benefits

• Share options
• Health and Life insurance
• Income protection
• 30 days holiday