Tech lead- Backend ( Django, python)

What kind of work will you get?

We are looking for a Nodejs developer.

Examples of technical tasks:

Working on our backend SDK to implement APIs that will be consumed by the frontend widgets

Designing APIs for different auth recipes

Architecting auth flows

You will also be given non technical tasks like product brain storming, competitor analysis and writing documentation.

Note: Compensation is as per the applicant's geography

Requirements

Well versed in nodejs with 2+ years of professional experience

Familiar with and comfortable working with Web frameworks like FastAPI, Django and Flask

Familiar with HTTP networking in nodejs

Strong understanding of async and sync modes in nodejs

Bonus:

Contributed to open source, or have your own open source repo with a community and many github stars

Built an in-house authentication or authorization solution or worked with solutions such as Keycloak, Auth0, Ory, Okta etc

Kwalee is one of the world’s leading multiplatform game publishers and developers, with well over 750 million downloads worldwide for mobile hits such as Draw It, Teacher Simulator, Let’s Be Cops 3D, Traffic Cop 3D and Makeover Studio 3D. Alongside this, we also have a growing PC and Console team of incredible pedigree that is on the hunt for great new titles to join TENS!, Eternal Hope and Die by the Blade. 

With a team of talented people collaborating daily between our studios in Leamington Spa, Bangalore and Beijing, or on a remote basis from Turkey, Brazil, the Philippines and many more places, we have a truly global team making games for a global audience. And it’s paying off: Kwalee games have been downloaded in every country on earth! If you think you’re a good fit for one of our remote vacancies, we want to hear from you wherever you are based.

Founded in 2011 by David Darling CBE, a key architect of the UK games industry who previously co-founded and led Codemasters for many years, our team also includes legends such as Andrew Graham (creator of Micro Machines series) and Jason Falcus (programmer of classics including NBA Jam) alongside a growing and diverse team of global gaming experts. Everyone contributes creatively to Kwalee’s success, with all employees eligible to pitch their own game ideas on Creative Wednesdays, and we’re proud to have built our success on this inclusive principle. Could your idea be the next global hit?

What’s the job?

As the Lead Backend Developer / Server Programmer you will write code that will run on 100s of servers thousands of times a second helping our games run smoothly, you will have to work out how to deal with massive amounts of data efficiently, train machines to crunch data and generally play around with the latest and greatest in tech.

You love to write efficient code and tackle hard puzzles, you like working with a committed team. 

What you tell your friends you do

“I’m the hero of the day, when actually I only needed to fix one line of code”

 What you will really be doing

• Contributing to the design and architecture of our servers using Python with Flask deployed on AWS EC2 Servers.
• Building Lambda pipelines to process large amounts of data.
• Implementing server features to robustly support millions of mobile game players.
• You’ll be working with a worldwide multi cluster Couchbase and Elasticsearch database, but always looking for the next technology that makes sense.
• Interfacing with other teams on any server-related issues affecting them.
• Leading a team of developers both onsite and remotely, closely supported by our CTO. 

How you will be doing this

• You’ll be part of an agile, multidisciplinary and creative team and work closely with them to ensure the best results.
• You'll think creatively and be motivated by challenges and constantly striving for the best.
• You’ll work with cutting edge technology, if you need software or hardware to get the job done efficiently, you will get it. We even have a robot!

Team

Our talented team is our signature. We have a highly creative atmosphere with more than 200 staff where you’ll have the opportunity to contribute daily to important decisions. You’ll work within an extremely experienced, passionate and diverse team, including David Darling and the creator of the Micro Machines video games.

Skills and Requirements

• A proven track record of writing high quality database and program code for servers with Python. We are considering different levels of experience (from several months to years).
• The ability to write quick scripts to accelerate manual tasks. 
• Knowledge of NoSQL databases (Couchbase, MongoDB, Cassandra, Memcache,etc.) could be useful but it’s not mandatory.
• Knowledge of Unix, Linux or equivalent development environments
• Some experience in game development would be a plus, although it’s not necessary.
• Team leadership / management experience 

We offer

• We want everyone involved in our games to share our success, that’s why we have a generous team profit sharing scheme from day 1 of employment
• In addition to a competitive salary we also offer private medical cover and life assurance
• Creative Wednesdays!(Design and make your own games every Wednesday)
• 20 days of paid holidays plus bank holidays 
• Hybrid model available depending on the department and the role
• Relocation support available 
• Great work-life balance with flexible working hours
• Quarterly team building days - work hard, play hard!
• Monthly employee awards
• Free snacks, fruit and drinks

Our philosophy

We firmly believe in creativity and innovation and that a fundamental requirement for a successful and happy company is having the right mix of individuals. With the right people in the right environment anything and everything is possible.

Kwalee makes games to bring people, their stories, and their interests together. As an employer, we’re dedicated to making sure that everyone can thrive within our team by welcoming and supporting people of all ages, races, colours, beliefs, sexual orientations, genders and circumstances. With the inclusion of diverse voices in our teams, we bring plenty to the table that’s fresh, fun and exciting; it makes for a better environment and helps us to create better games for everyone! This is how we move forward as a company – because these voices are the difference that make all the difference.

The TIFIN Group, started by Dr. Vinay Nair (IIT Madras alumnus and Governor’s Gold Medal awardee), is a fast-growing, capitalized US-based group of companies operating in the Fintech domain. It has multiple products in its portfolio today. We are a platform that combines expertise in finance, technology, entrepreneurship and investing to start and help build a portfolio of brands and companies in areas of investments, wealth management and asset management. our companies are cantered around the user and emphasize design innovation to build operating systems. We focus on simplifying and democratizing financial science to make it more holistic and integral to users-lives.

Role summary:
The candidate will play be critical role in enabling company's growth by developing highly scalable applications that provide practical solutions to clients in the financial services- domain.

• Design, build, test and maintain scalable and stable off the shelf application or custom-built technology solutions to meet business needs
• Contribute to the entire implementation process including driving the definition of improvements based on business need and architectural improvements
• Review code for quality and implementation best practices. Promote coding, testing and deployment best practices through hands-on research and demonstration
• Write testable code that enables extremely high levels of code coverage
• Ability to review frameworks and design principles towards suitability in the project context
• Candidates who will demonstrate an ability to identify an opportunity, lay out a rational plan for pursuing that opportunity, and see it through completion

What we're looking for:

• Engineering graduate with 3-8 years of experience in software product development
• Proficient in Python, Django, Pandas, GitHub and AWS.
• Good knowledge of PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Strong Experience in designing REST APIs
• Experience with working on scalable interactive web applications
• Clear understanding of software design constructs and their implementation
• Understanding of the threading limitations of Python and multi process architecture
• Familiarity with some ORM (Object Relational Mapper) libraries
• Good understanding of Test Driven Development
• Unit and Integration testing
• Preferred exposure to Finance domain
• Strong written and oral communication skills

Things you might find interesting:

• We value and encourage creative thinking & intellectual curiosity.
• You'll have a very clear understanding of how your work matters to the company.
• You'll find interesting new challenges every day on the forefront of Fintech space.
• You'll be given the responsibility to have a big impact on and opportunities for leadership within our business from early on.
• You'll be part of a passionate team with broad skills and interests.

Our Products :

• Magnifi: The world’s first semantic search engine that helps investors discover, compare, and buy investment products such as ETFs, mutual funds, and stocks.
• Positivly: An investment recommendation platform creating a stronger connection between investors and their investments by identifying the dominant personality traits of investors and the investments they care about the most.
• Paralel: A fintech platform that will redefine the relationship between asset managers and their back office.
• Louise: A digital platform that helps users navigate the world of giving while linking it to their investments and wealth management.
• Clout: An AI-powered, hyper-personalized content marketing platform to power sales in financial services.
• Farther: A wealth management platform based on an algorithmic approach to client acquisition.
• Totum: A product that enables a comprehensive understanding of risk to wealth management.
• Arbor: An application to save automatically, cancel your debts, and invest your savings to multiply your money.

About TIFIN group:

At all times, we are guided by our UltIMaTE values:

• Ult (Shared understanding through listening and speaking the truth) – We COMMUNICATE with radical candour, precision, and compassion to create a shared understanding.
• I (Innovate with creative solutions) – We believe that disruptive innovation begins with curiosity and CREATIVITY. We challenge the status quo and problem solve to find new answers.
• Ma (Make magic for our customers) – With deep EMPATHY for our clients, we create technology that transforms investor experiences.
• T (Teamwork for team win) – We believe in win together, learn together. We fly in formation. We cover each other’s backs. We inspire each other with our energy and attitude.
• E (Grow at the edge) – We are driven by PERSONAL GROWTH. We get out of our comfort zone and keep egos aside to find our genius zones. We strive to be the best we can possibly be. No excuses.

About us:

Strata is a commercial real estate investment platform that offers investors the opportunity to invest in pre-leased commercial assets such as offices, warehouses, and retail spaces across India.

We are one of the fastest-growing PropTech platforms in India and are backed by Elevation Capital, Mayfield, Kotak Investment Advisors, Gruhas (a venture by Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha) and DLF Family Office.

Our headquarter is in Bangalore, India.

We are a small yet close-knit team of 35+ people.

About you:

You have a knack for product and strongly equipped with engineering skills to make it a reality. You don’t jump into implementation unless you have clearly understood the problem/requirements and have a written design. You don’t hesitate asking questions and giving critical reviews while respecting others’ opinions. You are a fearless engineer, and not afraid to fail, not on production though ;) You have a strong sense of ownership. You have a startup experience. You don’t feel annoyed if required to work on off days in case of production incidents (no development).

Your responsibilities:

You will primarily work on the backend maintaining the existing platform and writing new enhancements and features. Apart from your own features, as a senior member of the team you will be expected to be actively involved in overall design discussions and peer code reviews. You will factor in extensibility, maintainability, scalability and security in designs and code. You will ensure that best engineering practices are followed. You will support your team members when they are facing challenges, and mentor them when appropriate. You will strive for overall engineering excellence.

Must-have Skills:

• 4-8 years of total experience
• 2+ years of experience in Django and DRF. You must be pro at it. The team will be looking up to you for making most out of DRF.
• Designing and building  scalable web applications
• Good understanding of REST principles
• SQL database design and queries
• Working knowledge of AWS

Good-To-Have Skills:

• Angular or any other JavaScript frontend framework
• Designing microservices
• DevOps experience

FAQ's.

1. Your technology ingredients?

Programming languages:
Our backend is written in Python using Django framework. And the frontend is in AngularJS. Currently there is no mobile app.

Infrastructure:
We are an AWS shop and use their services for most needs, Docker for containerization and ECS as orchestrator, RDS as database, S3 for storage and SQS as messaging backend.

Other tools:
BitBucket for Git and CI/CD pipeline, Trello for project management; and Google Meets and Slack for communication.

2. Your hiring plan?

Currently the engineering team comprises of 3 engineers, and we plan to grow it to 8 by the end of 2021.

3. Your Interview process?

We will try to finish the process within two weeks. In case we can’t go ahead with  your candidature, we will clearly and immediately let you know. But in case of competing applications, we may request you to wait for a week or two.

1. 15 minutes introductory call to discuss requirements and expectations
2. 30 minutes online coding assignment on a screen sharing session
3. 1 hour technical interview covering problem solving, code review and aptitude
4. 15 minutes call with co-founder for final discussion

In case of inability to come to a conclusion from either side, we may go for an additional round.

4. Your WFH and WFO policy?

Due to Covid-19 the team is working from home and will continue till March-2022. After that we will work from the Bangalore or Pune office (yet to be finalised). You should be open to relocate to any of the cities.

5. Your funding status?

In March 2020, Strata raised $1.5 million in seed funding; and $6 million in Series-A in July 2021.

• Excellent knowledge in one or more of Python/NodeJS REST Frameworks 
• Hands on experience in system architecture and data modelling. Experience with databases like MySQL, Postgres, MongoDB.
• Devops capabilities - with good understanding of deployments and cloud infrastructure. In depth knowledge of container architecture using Docker is must. 
• Scaled systems using RabbitMQ/ Redis /Celery/ Kafka