Backend Developer (ROR)

Job Title : Python Django Developer

Experience : 3+ Years

Location : Gurgaon

Working Days : 6 Days (Monday to Saturday)

Job Summary :

We are looking for a skilled Python Django Developer with strong foundational knowledge in backend development, data structures, and operating system concepts.

The ideal candidate should have experience in Django and PostgreSQL, along with excellent logical thinking and multithreading knowledge.

Technical Skills : Python, Django (or Flask), PostgreSQL/MySQL, SQL & NoSQL ORM, REST API development, JSON/XML, strong knowledge of data structures, multithreading, and OS concepts.

Key Responsibilities :

• Write efficient, reusable, testable, and scalable code using the Django framework.
• Develop backend components, server-side logic, and statistical models.
• Design and implement high-availability, low-latency applications with robust data protection and security.
• Contribute to the development of highly responsive web applications.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on system design and integration.

Mandatory Skills :

• Strong programming skills in Python and Django (or similar frameworks like Flask).
• Proficiency with PostgreSQL / MySQL and experience in writing complex queries.
• Strong understanding of SQL and NoSQL ORM.
• Solid grasp of data structures, multithreading, and operating system concepts.
• Experience with RESTful API development and implementation of API security.
• Knowledge of JSON/XML and their use in data exchange.

Good-to-Have Skills :

• Experience with Redis, MQTT, and message queues like RabbitMQ or Kafka
• Understanding of microservice architecture and third-party API integrations (e.g., payment gateways, SMS/email APIs)
• Familiarity with MongoDB and other NoSQL databases
• Exposure to data science libraries such as Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn
• Knowledge in building and integrating statistical learning models.

8+ years backend engineering experience in production systems

Proven experience architecting large-scale distributed systems (high throughput, low latency, high availability)

Deep expertise in system design including scalability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization

Experience leading cross-team technical initiatives in complex systems

Strong understanding of security, privacy, compliance, and secure coding practices

Our Mission

To make video as accessible to machines as text and voice are today.

At lookup, we believe the world's most valuable asset is trapped. Video is everywhere, but it's unsearchable—a black box of insight that no one can open or atleast open affordably. We’re changing that. We're building the search engine for the visual world, so anyone can find or do anything with video just by asking.

Text is queryable. Voice is transcribed. Video, the largest and richest data source of all, is still a black box. A computer can't understand it, and so its value remains trapped.

Our mission at lookup is to fix this.

About the Role

We are looking for founding Backend Engineers to build a highly performant, reliable, and scalable API platform that makes enterprise video knowledge readily available for video search, summarization, and natural‑language Q&A. You will partner closely with our ML team working on vision‑language models to productionize research and deliver fast, trustworthy APIs for customers.

Examples of technical challenges you will work on include: distributed video storage, a unified application framework and data model for indexing large video libraries, low‑latency clip retrieval, vector search at scale, and end‑to‑end build, test, deploy, and observability in cloud environments.

What You’ll Do:

• Design and build robust backend services and APIs (REST, gRPC) for vector search, video summarization, and video Q&A.
• Own API performance and reliability, including low‑latency retrieval, pagination, rate limiting, and backwards‑compatible versioning.
• Design schemas and tune queries in Postgres, and integrate with unstructured storage.
• Implement observability across metrics, logs, and traces. Set error budgets and SLOs.
• Write clear design docs and ship high‑quality, well‑tested code.
• Collaborate with ML engineers to integrate and productionize VLMs and retrieval pipelines.
• Take ownership of architecture from inception to production launch.

Who You Are:

• 3+ years of professional experience in backend development.
• Proven experience building and scaling polished WebSocket, gRPC, and REST APIs.
• Exposure to distributed systems and container orchestration (Docker and Kubernetes).
• Hands‑on experience with AWS.
• Strong knowledge of SQL (Postgres) and NoSQL (e.g., Cassandra), including schema design, query optimization, and scaling.
• Familiarity with our stack is a plus, but not mandatory: Python (FastAPI), Celery, Kafka, Postgres, Redis, Weaviate, React.
• Ability to diagnose complex issues, identify root causes, and implement effective fixes.
• Comfortable working in a fast‑paced startup environment.

Nice to have:

• Hands-on work with LLM agents, vector embeddings, or RAG applications.
• Building video streaming pipelines and storage systems at scale (FFmpeg, RTSP, WebRTC).
• Proficiency with modern frontend frameworks (React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS) and responsive UI design.

Location & Culture

• Full-time, in-office role in Bangalore (we’re building fast and hands-on).
• Must be comfortable with a high-paced environment and collaboration across PST time zones for our US customers and investors.
• Expect startup speed — daily founder syncs, rapid design-to-prototype cycles, and a culture of deep ownership.

Why You’ll Love This Role

• Work on the frontier of video understanding and real-world AI — products that can redefine trust and automation.
• Build core APIs that make video queryable and power real customer use.
• Own systems end to end: performance, reliability, and developer experience.
• Work closely with founders and collaborate in person in Bangalore.
• Competitive salary with meaningful early equity.

• Developing models and business logic (e. g. transactions, payments, diet plan, search, etc).
• Architecting servers and services that enable new product features.
• Building out newly enabled product features.
• Monitoring system uptime and errors to drive us toward a high-performing and reliable product.
• Take ownership and understand the need for code quality, elegance, and robust infrastructure.
• Worked collaboratively on a software development team.
• Built scalable web applications.

Skills:

• Minimum 4 years of industry or open-source experience.
• Proficient in at least one OO language: Python(preferred)/Golang/Java.
• Writing high-performance, reliable and maintainable code.
• Good knowledge of database structures, theories, principles, and practices.
• Experience working with AWS components [EC2, S3, RDS, SQS, ECS, Lambda]

Role Responsibilities:

• Development and Maintenance of REST APIs: Lead the creation and management of our RESTful APIs, ensuring top-notch performance and alignment with evolving requirements.
• Proficiency in Coding: We're in search of expertise in Python or equivalent programming languages. Your coding skills will play a pivotal role in delivering high-quality (efficient, reusable, testable, and scalable) solutions.
• Unit and Integration Testing: Apply your expertise to craft unit and integration tests, upholding code quality and reliability.
• Version Control Systems: Proficiency in Distributed Version Control Systems is vital for seamless collaboration during development.
• Elasticsearch Expertise: Having valuable experience with Elasticsearch is a plus, given its critical role in data retrieval and search functionalities.
• NOSQL Database Familiarity: Knowledge of NOSQL databases like Cassandra and MongoDB will be advantageous.
• Message Broker Knowledge: Understanding message brokers, especially RabbitMQ, is beneficial for effective communication within our systems.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience: 1-2 years of hands-on experience as a Python developer.
• AWS: Proficiency in AWS cloud management and architecting enterprise data solutions.
• Pragmatic Problem-Solving: Recognize when a solution should be streamlined and when creating the right abstraction will lead to long-term efficiency gains.
• Passion for Quality: Demonstrate dedication to producing work of the highest quality and following best practices.
• Agile/Lean Process: Familiarity with Agile/Lean methodologies is a plus, reflecting your adaptability and collaborative spirit.
• Startup Mindset: Embrace the challenges and opportunities of a startup environment, contributing your skills and insights to our growth.
• Debugging and Optimization: Showcase excellent debugging and optimization capabilities to enhance system performance.
• Tech Awareness: Stay updated on emerging technologies and possess a solid understanding of the full product development life cycle.
• UX and Information Architecture: Exhibit excellent knowledge of mobile user experience, information architecture, and industry trends.

• Solid experience in RoR, Golang, NodeJS or Python. Good to have exposure to ML.
• Should have experience in cloud computing
• Has an ability to quickly learn and contribute in multiple codebase
• Overcomes roadblocks and requires minimal oversight
• Takes initiatives to fix issues/tech debts before assigned to him/her
• Able to deep dive into codebase and advise QA of possible regression impact
• Communicates tech decisions through design docs and tech talks
• Has delivered projects with end-to-end accountability
• Keeps track of industry trends and introduces right tech/tools for a given job
• Excellent understanding of software engineering practices, Design Patterns, Data Structures, Algorithms

• Leads more than one projects end-to-end and collaborates across functions. Drives planning, estimation and execution.
• Manages stakeholder expectations and offers scalable, reliable, performant and easy to maintain solutions
• Consistently delivers complex, well backed and bug-free products in time
• Consistently takes well thought technical/design decisions
• Develops expertise in more than one area and shares knowledge with others. able to mentor/train in areas which are new to them.
• Drives people to solve engineering challenges
• Enjoys high respect of Tech and other cross functional teams
• Demonstrates effective communication with project team, management and

internal/external clients as necessary.

• Surfaces both technical and non-technical team challenges and helps resolve them
• Champion for SDLC best practices and high quality standards

• Expert at in RoR, Golang, NodeJS or Python. Good to have exposure to ML.
• Must have experience in cloud computing
• Operates independently with almost no oversight
• Is able to apply domain expertise to think critically and make wise decisions for the

team, taking into account tradeoffs and constraints.

• Communicates tech decisions through design docs and tech talks
• Has delivered multiple projects with end-to-end engineering ownership
• Keeps track of new technology/tools and embraces them as necessary
• 7+ years of experience in product driven organization
• A Bachelors or Masters degree in engineering from a reputed institute (preferably

• Collaborating with the front-end developers and other team members to establish objectives and design more functional, cohesive codes to enhance the user experience.
• Own code for the products with responsibilities including but not limited to designing, developing, testing, maintenance of products.
• Building RESTful services and do DevOps.
• Talking to customers and business teams to suggest improvement areas in product flows.
• Create peer learnings for team members and build context for new teammates
• Help with building the company's tech team and iterating on the hiring framework.
• Provide regular feedback to your team (peers and managers) to ensure continuous improvement.
• Keeping abreast with the latest technologies and working on your skills regularly.

Skills & Requirements

• Good knowledge and experience of working with backend systems; designing server-side architecture, including production maintenance experience are must-haves.
• At least 1-8 years of experience in any programming languages like Java, Ruby, PHP, Python, and Node.js(Node.js preferred).
• Understanding of micro-services-oriented architecture.
• Experience with Databases design (SQL, NoSQL) and analytics
• Experience in driving and delivering complex features/software modules from technical design to launch.
• Expertise with unit testing & Test Driven Development (TDD)
• Have empathy for the users you build for

Good to have

• Experience in the fintech industry
• Experience leading design and implementation of robust and secure web services