Lead Python Engineer - AI Automation

The Opportunity We are partnering with a fast-growing AI technology company building enterprise-grade products that automate complex knowledge workflows across regulated and mission-critical industries. They are looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to take ownership of major areas of their platform and help scale both the technology and engineering team. This is a hands-on technical leadership role — approximately 70% engineering / 30% leadership — suited to someone who wants to remain close to the code while having significant influence over architecture, engineering standards and technical direction. What You'll Do You'll own complex backend workstreams from architecture through to production, including: Design and build scalable, distributed backend systems.Develop high-performance Python microservices and APIs.Architect event-driven and asynchronous systems.Build real-time streaming and messaging infrastructure.Own technical decisions around APIs, data models and service architecture.Design and optimise high-throughput SQL and NoSQL databases.Improve platform reliability, performance and observability.Drive engineering standards across testing, code quality and architecture.Lead code reviews and contribute production-grade code.Work closely with Product, Frontend, ML and DevOps teams.Mentor and technically lead a small cross-functional engineering team.Help shape engineering practices as the organisation scales. What We're Looking For 8–10+ years' software engineering experience.Deep expertise in Python and backend development.Strong experience with distributed systems and microservices architecture.Experience designing event-driven and high-throughput systems.Strong understanding of API design and data modelling.Experience leading engineers, technical teams or major workstreams.Track record of taking complex systems from architecture through production.Strong software engineering fundamentals and system design capabilities.