{"id":3588929,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ap-us-tax-advisory-lead-backend-integrations-engineer-python-fastapi-postgres","title":"Lead Backend / Integrations Engineer (Python, FastAPI, Postgres)","company":{"id":4493474,"name":"AP US Tax Advisory","domain":"apustax.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ap-us-tax-advisory","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":null,"truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":{"label":"UTC+2","utc_offset_min":2,"utc_offset_max":2},"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Ukraine"],"countries":["UA"],"hiring_countries":["RU"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":3500,"max":6000,"currency":"USD","period":"month","gross":false,"usd_annual":72000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Alembic","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon CloudWatch","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon ECS","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":false},{"name":"Anthropic","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"AWS Fargate","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"FastAPI","optional":false},{"name":"Google Drive","optional":false},{"name":"Least Privilege","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rest API","optional":false},{"name":"SQLAlchemy","optional":false},{"name":"WhatsApp","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":true},{"name":"ISO 27001","optional":true},{"name":"LLM","optional":true},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":true},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":true},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":true},{"name":"Structured Outputs","optional":true},{"name":"Synthetic Data","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-01T11:45:19Z","employer_posted_date":null,"last_verified_at":"2026-11-01T11:45:19Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"AP US Tax Compliance and Advisory is a US tax firm based in Israel serving Israeli investors with US real estate and US citizens living abroad. Owner-run, growing, and building its own technology.\n\nTHE PROJECT\n\nWe prepare US tax returns in Wolters Kluwer CCH Axcess and have automated most of the preparation through CCH's REST API: import, calculation, printing, review memos, e-file qualification and release all run from code today. What runs in scripts must become a product before the 2027 filing season: a client platform where clients (or their AI assistants) complete a structured intake, the system extracts data from documents, prepares the return through CCH, routes it to a human reviewer and signer, collects an e-signature and payment, releases the e-file and delivers the result. The design document, data model, state machine, API and security model are written. You will be the first engineer and you will own the backend.\n\nRESPONSIBILITIES\n\n- Backend architecture and implementation: Python 3.12, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy/Alembic, Postgres, a job queue, workers, webhooks.\n\n- The CCH Axcess API module as a server-side job runner: one in-flight job per return, global concurrency limits, exponential backoff on locks, idempotency keys, prompt handling, structured results, parked-job alerts.\n\n- Security engineering: PII vault with field-level encryption (KMS), tokenized payload assembly, append-only audit log, RBAC with step-up MFA for sensitive actions, PII-free logging with a redaction layer, secrets manager, backups and restore tests.\n\n- Integrations: Stripe (payments, webhooks), an e-signature vendor with identity verification, Google Drive, transactional email, WhatsApp Business API, Anthropic API for document extraction with human confirmation.\n\n- Infrastructure as code on AWS (ECS Fargate or App Runner, RDS, S3, KMS, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch) or an agreed managed platform; CI with tests and security scans; staging and production environments; runbooks.\n\n- You work against a mock CCH server built from our specification; production runs are performed by the firm. You will never hold production credentials or see client data.\n\n- Collaboration: a full-stack engineer on the portal and staff console; an AI assistant that writes specifications and reviews every pull request before the owner sees it; a weekly 30-minute call with the owner.\n\n- After the build: a retained maintenance agreement including on-call during the filing season.\n\nREQUIREMENTS\n\n- 5+ years building Python backends in production, 2+ years as the person responsible for a system's reliability.\n\n- Deep Postgres: schema design, migrations, transactions, indexing, point-in-time recovery.\n\n- Integrations with unreliable third-party APIs: retries, idempotency, partial failure, long-running jobs with polling.\n\n- Security habits: least privilege, secrets management, no sensitive data in logs, dependency hygiene. You can explain how you would design a system where the people who build it never see the data it holds.\n\n- Docker; one major cloud; infrastructure as code.\n\n- Clear written English; you document decisions and write runbooks without being asked.\n\n- At least four hours of daily overlap with Israel (UTC+2); availability December 2026 through June 2027 at 30-40 hours per week.\n\nNICE TO HAVE\n\n- Fintech, payments, accounting, insurance or health-data experience; SOC 2 or ISO 27001 exposure.\n\n- LLM API experience (Anthropic/OpenAI SDKs, tool use, structured outputs) or MCP servers.\n\n- Experience with XML-heavy enterprise APIs.\n\n- Russian or Hebrew (the owner speaks both; not required).\n\nENGAGEMENT TERMS\n\n- Independent contractor (B2B) via Deel, Payoneer or Upwork; NDA, IP assignment and the firm's confidentiality agreement signed before access to any repository.\n\n- Phase 1: December 1, 2026 to April 30, 2027, 30-40 h/week; USD 3,500-6,000 per month (or USD 30-45/h) depending on seniority and hours.\n\n- Phase 2: May 2027 onward, retained maintenance 10-20 h/week plus on-call in season, priced separately.\n\n- Access: development and staging only; no production data, no production credentials; mock CCH server and synthetic data.\n\n- Remote; Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Armenia, Serbia, Kazakhstan and similar time zones preferred. Not available to contractors located in Russia.\n\nPROCESS\n\n1. Written application with three short answers: (a) one third-party API integration you built that had to survive locks, rate limits or inconsistent responses, and what you did about it; (b) how you keep secrets and personal data out of logs in a system you run; (c) your availability December 2026 to June 2027 and your overlap with UTC+2.\n\n2. 30-minute call with the owner.\n\n3. Paid trial task: 10-15 hours over one week, USD 500 paid regardless of outcome, on the mock server with synthetic data.\n\n4. References, contract, onboarding. Target start: December 1, 2026.\n\nApply with a CV or LinkedIn profile, links to code or systems you are proud of, and the three answers. 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