Backend Python Engineer
Szlak 49, Kraków +2 Locations
VirtusLab
Design and build backend systems in Python with a focus on system architecture and reliability. You’ll shape solutions end-to-end, from data flows to integration with distributed components (e.g. messaging). Expect ownership, mentoring juniors, and space to influence technical direction. Great role for someone who enjoys system design and growing into a lead architect.
📝Project scope
In collaboration with client bioinformatics and data science teams, we are building a platform to manage data flows from hundreds of connected laboratory instruments. The main objective is to industrialise the current MVP into a production-grade system. The solution provides a single source of truth for scientific data, supports data lineage and versioning (“time travel”), ensures reliable cold storage, and enables near real-time streaming and processing for analysis.
🛠Tech stack
Python (3.10+) with FastAPI and async stackKafka / AWS Kinesis for eventingPostgres for metadata and operational stateAWS (MSK, S3, Lambda, IAM) as cloud backboneNext.js + Tauri frontend for instrument interactionGitHub, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, AWS CDK)
🚵♂️Project Challenges
The current MVP, built rapidly to prove feasibility, requires transformation into a reliable and extensible production platform. The main challenge is dealing with the heterogeneity of hundreds of lab instruments, mostly Windows-based, and ensuring consistent data capture and lineage. Another challenge is balancing scientific requirements with sound software engineering practices, while ensuring the architecture remains future-proof.
🤝Team
The team consists of 10 engineers distributed across Poland and Brazil, supported by domain experts in bioinformatics. The client’s team is primarily bioinformatics specialists with strong domain expertise but limited experience in system design. Our role is to provide architectural leadership, backend expertise, and hands-on mentoring to enable them to build a sustainable platform.
What we expect in general
8+ years of backend development experience, including 5+ years with Python
Proven track record in system architecture and distributed systems design
Experience with messaging systems (Kafka or RabbitMQ) and relational databases (Postgres)
Strong knowledge of cloud environments (AWS preferred)
Degree in Computer Science, Bioinformatics or related field
Fluent English
Join the VLteam and elevate your career to new heights! Join us in shaping the future of software engineering with a team that values flexibility, fosters an open-minded culture, and delivers outstanding solutions. We have extensive knowledge about Data Engineering & Data Science, Cloud-Native Services, Reactive Systems, Dev Tooling and Frontend. We are also worldwide experts in Scala language, officially supporting its development and tooling.