Senior Backend Engineer

The requirements are as follows:

1) Familiar with the the Django REST API Framework.

2) Experience with the FAST API framework will be a plus

3) Strong grasp of basic python programming concepts ( We do ask a lot of questions on this on our interviews :) )

4) Experience with databases like MongoDB , Postgres , Elasticsearch , REDIS will be a plus

5) Experience with any ML library will be a plus.

6) Familiarity with using git , writing unit test cases for all code written and CI/CD concepts will be a plus as well.

7) Familiar with basic code patterns like MVC.

8) Grasp on basic data structures.

You can contact me on nine three one six one two zero one three two

Strong Engineering Manager / Lead Profiles

Mandatory (Experience 1) - Must have 8+ years of overall Software Engineering/Development experience

Mandatory (Experience 2) - Must have 3+ years of experience as Engineering Manager / Team Lead role, with ownership of technical direction, delivery, and people management

Mandatory (Experience 3) - Must have hands-on Backend development experience using Python or Java, with frameworks such as FastAPI / Django / Spring / Express (Node.js)

Mandatory (Experience 4) - Must have Frontend development exposure using ReactJS, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Mandatory (Experience 5) - Must have experience designing and building APIs, services, and integrations, including system design, PR reviews, and architectural decision-making.

Mandatory (Experience 6) - Must have experience leading engineers end-to-end – mentoring, code reviews, execution planning, and improving team productivity/quality

Mandatory (Company) - Must be from Product Companies / Startups (early to growth stage), B2B SaaS + Fintech industry is highly preferred

Mandatory (Note) - This role will be 80% team management and 20% IC (hands on coding required)

Responsibilities :

• Involved in detailing and implementing user stories. 
• Understand the technical specifications and design the solutions. 
• Validate and implement the integration components of the third-party applications. 
• Build scalable and fault-tolerant software solutions adhering to the organization's secured coding standards. 
• Strive for 100% unit test code coverage. 
• Do code quality checks and code reviews regularly to ensure safe and efficient code. 
• Verify and deploy software solutions for development needs. 
• Work closely with the team to deliver the sprint objectives. 
• Continuously look to improve the organization's standards. 

Requirement

• A Bachelor’s / Master’s Degree in Engineering or Information Technology. 
• 4-7 years of software development experience with 2+ years of experience with Python programming language. 
• A thorough understanding of computer architecture, operating systems, and data structures. 
• An in-depth understanding of the Internet, Cloud Computing & Services, and REST APIs. 
• Must have experience with any one of the Python frameworks like Flask / FastAPI / Django REST. 
• Must know GIT and Python virtual environment. 
• Should have experience with Python requests module. 
• Must know how to use third-party libraries in Python. 
• Knowledge of Python module/library creation will be added advantageous. 
• Familiarity with SIEM tools like the Qradar app / Splunk app and Splunk add-on will be an advantage. 
• Experience working with Linux/Unix and shell scripts. 
• Experience working with Linux/Unix and shell scripts 
• A meticulous and organized approach to work. 
• A logical, analytical, and creative approach to problem-solving. 
• A thorough, detail-oriented work style.

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.

💥 What will you do?

As a Backend Engineer, you will

• Create and maintain server-side code
• Designing database schemas to support business requirements
• Building reusable code and libraries for future use
• Troubleshoot and debug applications
• Write unit tests
• Stay up to date with current best practices
• Collaborate with front end engineers
• Optimization of the application for maximum speed and scalability
• Work with stakeholders including the Executive, Product, Data, and Design teams to assist with web-application-related technical issues and support their requirements.

🙋 What are we looking for? 

While we do not have a strict list of requirements for candidates interested in this role, some indicators that you would fit this role and our engineering culture are 

• 2+ years of relevant work experience as a Backend engineer using Python frameworks like Django, Flask, etc
• Experience with relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL
• Good understanding of OOP concepts
• Understanding of code versioning tools, such as Git
• Basic understanding of front-end technologies and platforms, such as JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3.
• Experience writing unit tests for the application is a plus
• Experience with building REST APIs
• Superior analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills in English.

Skills And Qualifications

• Expert in Python, with knowledge of at least one Python web framework (such as Django, Flask, etc depending on your technology stack)
• Familiarity with some ORM (Object Relational Mapper) libraries
• Able to integrate multiple data sources and databases into one system
• Understanding of the threading limitations of Python, and multi-process architecture
• Good understanding of server-side templating languages (such as Jinja 2, Mako, etc depending on your technology stack)
• Basic understanding of front-end technologies, such as JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3
• Understanding of accessibility and security compliance (depending on the specific project)
• Knowledge of user authentication and authorization between multiple systems, servers, and environments
• Understanding of fundamental design principles behind a scalable application
• Familiarity with event-driven programming in Python
• Understanding of the differences between multiple delivery platforms, such as mobile vs desktop, and optimizing output to match the specific platform
• Able to create database schemas that represent and support business processes
• Strong unit test and debugging skills
• Proficient understanding of code versioning tools (such as Git, Mercurial or SVN)
• (Make sure to mention other frameworks, libraries, or any other technology related to your development stack)
• (List education level or certification you require)