Senior Python Engineer (Contract)

Fliff unpacks sports gaming into social, free-to-play games for all types of sports fans. We've built a social sports gaming experience that allows users to compete for leaderboard positioning, to achieve badges and build their status within the game.
We are pioneering play-for-fun sports gaming, with our flagship social sportsbook experience that includes sweepstakes promotions and loyalty rewards. We provide sports fans with fun, engaging, and free-to-play alternatives to real money gaming.
We are looking for a Senior Python Engineer to own, design, build, and maintain high-performance distributed backend systems serving millions of users. You will be accountable for end-to-end delivery of scalable, reliable, and low-latency solutions using Python, Django, and Kafka.
This role requires full working-hour alignment with Central European Time (CET ±2 hours) to enable daily, real-time collaboration with our Sofia-based team. We are only considering candidates located within this time zone range. Applicants outside CET ±2 hours will not be considered. What You’ll Do

• Take full ownership of backend services from design through deployment, maintenance, and continuous improvement
• Design, develop, and maintain scalable, high-performance distributed backend services using Python and Django
• Architect distributed systems to support millions of users with low latency and high availability
• Collaborate with product, frontend, and DevOps teams to ship reliable features on aggressive timelines
• Lead and mentor junior engineers through code reviews, architectural discussions, and knowledge sharing
• Own critical backend infrastructure components: APIs, data pipelines, message brokers (Kafka), caching
• Optimize systems for throughput, latency, fault tolerance, and resilience under heavy load
• Implement robust testing strategies: unit, integration, and performance tests
• Drive continuous improvement of development processes and system observability (monitoring, logging)
• Participate in on-call rotations and support production issues as needed

What We're Looking For:

• 5+ years of professional Python backend development experience with a proven track record of ownership and successful delivery
• Solid Django experience (not necessarily expert level), with asynchronous programming skills (asyncio)
• Production experience with Apache Kafka
• Strong experience with distributed systems (microservices or similar architecture)
• Experience deploying and managing containerized applications (Docker); Kubernetes experience is a plus
• Familiarity with any cloud provider (AWS preferred)
• Proficient with SQL databases, especially PostgreSQL; NoSQL is a plus
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and test automation
• Knowledge of monitoring and logging tools (Prometheus, Grafana, or equivalent)
• Strong problem-solving skills and comfort doing code reviews
• Prior experience working with systems supporting 1M+ users is a strong plus
• Comfortable working in Agile teams
• Strong sense of responsibility and commitment to shipping high-quality software
• Willingness to participate in on-call rotations

Nice to Have

• Exposure to event sourcing or CQRS patterns
• Familiarity with frontend technologies (React)
• Knowledge of big data tools (Flink, NiFi)
• Exposure to infrastructure as code tools like Terraform
• Practical knowledge of containerization and orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes
• Experience in sports/betting industries

Benefits:

• Fully remote work environment.
• Professional development opportunities in a dynamic, global setting.
• A supportive, collaborative, and knowledge-driven workplace.
• An engaging and challenging role with the freedom to innovate and develop effective solutions.