Senior Software Engineer (Python)

Job Description
Role Summary: Drive the design, implementation, and enhancement of mission-critical Control Plane APIs and distributed backend services powering core cloud networking. This role focuses on scaling high-throughput API endpoints, IPAM, VPC, and orchestration workflows within an asynchronous Python backend stack, requiring an engineer who can ramp up rapidly in an unfamiliar codebase and deliver production-grade features within an agile, evolving architecture.
Requirements:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
5+ years of production experience in backend software engineering for distributed systems and control plane platforms.
Strong proficiency in Python and its ecosystem, with hands-on experience in Flask, SQLAlchemy, Celery, Redis, and MySQL.
Strong foundation in core Internet and networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, IPv4 (DHCP), IPv6 (DHCPv6), DNS / rDNS, HTTP, BGP, and ICMP.
Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure primitives: Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), IP Address Management (IPAM), IAM, Observability, and Billing.
Proven track record of independently navigating complex, legacy, or partially documented codebases, delivering meaningful contributions within the first 4–6 weeks.
Rigorous written communication and documentation hygiene: writing thorough pull request descriptions, architecture decision records, clear READMEs, and structured handoff documentation.
Time zone flexibility with sufficient working overlap during US Eastern Time (ET) business hours.
Nice to have:
Hands-on experience with modern observability stacks: OpenTelemetry (OTEL), Grafana, Loki, and VictoriaMetrics.
Exposure to configuration management platforms (particularly SaltStack).
Experience with distributed task queues, event-driven architectures, and high-availability database replication.
Practical experience leveraging modern AI developer tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude, Gemini) to accelerate testing, code quality, and delivery cycles.
Job Responsibilities
Design, build, test, and maintain robust, high-performance Control Plane APIs and background task pipelines using Flask, SQLAlchemy, Celery, and Redis.
Implement core cloud networking functionalities across IPAM allocation engines, VPC routing interfaces, and multi-tenant billing/IAM boundaries.
Troubleshoot and resolve concurrency, latency, and consistency issues across distributed MySQL and Redis backends.
Establish clear system documentation, updating architectural sources of truth, internal runbooks, and API specifications to ensure frictionless handoffs.
Communicate status, blockers, and architectural trade-offs proactively and asynchronously through structured status updates and detailed PR descriptions.
Adapt to evolving project milestones and shift across multiple concurrent workstreams without losing delivery momentum.
Department/Project Description
Join the Athena Platform Networking Team dedicated to building and scaling the next generation of global cloud infrastructure control plane APIs. In this role, you will be directly responsible for the backend services that manage compute connectivity, network provisioning, and cloud resource management, delivering resilient, highly available software in a dynamic distributed systems environment.
Skill Category