{"id":3051889,"url":"https://alion.io/job/mdpi-backend-engineer-python","title":"Backend Engineer (Python)","company":{"id":14517,"name":"MDPI","domain":"mdpi.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/mdpi","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Teamtailor","truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":61,"open_postings":14,"ghost_share":0.643,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":51,"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Belgrade, Serbia"],"countries":["RS"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":".NET","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"dbt","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"DuckDB","optional":false},{"name":"Git","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"MariaDB","optional":false},{"name":"MySQL","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Qdrant","optional":false},{"name":"Rest API","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"C#","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-07T11:11:11Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-31T14:43:01Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":54,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":53},"description":"We are looking for an Intermediate Backend Engineer (Python) to join our team and contribute to the development of MDPI Pulse, an important initiative shaping how MDPI engages with the academic community. As a Backend Engineer, you will have the opportunity to design technical solutions, build reliable services and data flows, and contribute to how those solutions are deployed and operated in production.\nYou will work closely with the Data Engineer assigned to the project, as well as the Belgrade email-marketing operations team and other teams such as Product, QA, UX and DevOps, with a mutual goal to help scale Pulse and targeted email campaigns across more institutions and countries.\nWorking primarily with Python, you will contribute to improving content engagement and enabling more targeted and relevant email communication.\nCore Responsibilities\nDesign, develop and maintain scalable backend services and APIs using Python.\n\nContribute to software architecture and technical design decisions, translating product requirements into reliable backend solutions.\n\nDesign and maintain data pipelines that support Pulse’s targeting and communication capabilities, from ingestion and transformation through to storage and consumption.\n\nWork with data from a variety of sources and storage technologies - relational databases, vector databases, object storage and analytical tooling, and collaborate closely with Data Engineers to ensure reliable movement and processing of data across systems.\n\nContribute to the reliability, scalability and maintainability of data-processing workflows.\n\nDeploy, containerize and operate backend services in production, taking ownership of the full path to production through Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines.\n\nAdditional Responsibilities\nWrite integration tests and maintain comprehensive test coverage for owned components.\n\nPerform code reviews, providing constructive feedback to improve team code quality.\n\nApply observability principles to owned services, contributing to service health monitoring and alerting.\n\nRequirements\nBachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field.\n\nAround 5 years of professional experience in backend or software engineering, with strong hands-on experience using Python.\n\nSolid experience with backend architecture and software design, including designing and implementing reliable, maintainable services and REST APIs.\n\nStrong knowledge of databases and SQL, with hands-on experience across relational engines such as MySQL, PostgreSQL and MariaDB, including ORM frameworks, database migrations and query optimization. Experience with vector databases, such as Qdrant, is a strong advantage.\n\nPractical experience designing and operating data pipelines, including columnar file formats (Parquet) and object storage (S3), as well as analytics and transformation tooling such as DuckDB and dbt.\n\nSolid DevOps notions and proven experience taking software to production, including Git, Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines, and comfort operating and troubleshooting services in live environments.\n\nExcellent written and spoken English.\n\nAbility to work independently, take ownership of technical solutions and collaborate effectively with engineering and cross-functional teams.\n\nAbout MDPI\nHeadquartered in Switzerland, MDPI is a fully Open Access publisher with a portfolio of more than 500 journals across all scientific disciplines. To date, MDPI has published the works of over 4.5 million researchers, collaborating with an extensive network of academic institutions and scientific societies worldwide. Above all, MDPI is committed to ensuring that high-quality research is freely accessible to readers across the globe.\nAt MDPI, technology is not just a support function - it’s a core driver of our innovation, performance and customer experience. We are proud to develop most of our software in-house and host our systems on-premises, further enriching our already diverse technology landscape. Our commitment to building on open-source stacks empowers our teams to work with flexible, modern and community-driven tools. From cutting-edge submission systems to advanced digital services, our IT environment is a dynamic playground where creativity meets complexity. With a strong focus on continuously growing our technology capabilities, MDPI offers a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of digital transformation in publishing. Join us and be part of a team where your ideas matter, your skills are valued and your passion for technology can truly thrive.\nInitiatives\nAt MDPI, we develop and maintain various platforms in order to better serve the scientific community. Please find here-below a list of our main platforms:\nhttps://www.mdpi.com/\nhttps://sciprofiles.com/\nhttps://sciforum.net/\nhttps://www.scilit.net/\nhttps://www.preprints.org/\nhttps://encyclopedia.pub/\nhttps://www.mdpi.com/books/\n#LI-Onsite #MDPISerbia","description_format":"text","description_chars":4950,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Health Care","Publishing","Healthcare Associations & Regulators"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-22T02:34:01Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":30,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.552,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":53,"expected_fill_days":51,"reasons":["conf:4","stale_co","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/mdpi-backend-engineer-python","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/mdpi-backend-engineer-python.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-01T00:04:06Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":138,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-02T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":14517},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=14517"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmdpi-backend-engineer-python"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmdpi-backend-engineer-python"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmdpi-backend-engineer-python"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/mdpi-backend-engineer-python\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmdpi-backend-engineer-python"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3051889}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"mdpi.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3051889},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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