Backend Engineer

📋 Description

• • Join Cytora, now an Applied Systems company, and become a pivotal force in revolutionizing the insurance industry. We are at the forefront of digital transformation, leveraging cutting-edge AI to reshape how insurers and brokers connect, operate, and achieve growth. Our innovative platform empowers smarter decision-making, enhances operational efficiency, and fosters seamless collaboration across the global insurance landscape. As a Backend Engineer, you will be an integral part of a dynamic, small, and independent functional team, typically comprising 4-5 members. Each team is empowered with a dedicated Technical Lead and Product Owner, ensuring clear direction and focused delivery of impactful features.
• • Your role will encompass the full software development lifecycle: from prototyping and implementing novel solutions to shipping robust features and providing ongoing support. You will be instrumental in developing the core of our product, which focuses on digitizing risks and heavily relies on Generative AI capabilities. This is an opportunity to work with a highly skilled, distributed engineering and product team across Europe, contributing to a product that is actively changing the insurance industry.
• • We are seeking engineers who are not only technically proficient but also possess a strong sense of curiosity and a collaborative spirit. You will be challenged to think creatively, solve complex problems, and contribute to a culture of continuous innovation. The ideal candidate will be energized by the prospect of making a tangible impact and eager to shape the future of insurance technology. Your contributions will directly influence the success of our platform and the evolution of our clients' businesses.
• • The core responsibilities of this role include designing, developing, and maintaining scalable and reliable backend services. You will write clean, efficient, and well-documented code, adhering to best practices in software engineering. This involves working with Python and its extensive ecosystem, including libraries like msgspec, httpx, pydantic, fastapi, structlog, sqlalchemy, alembic, jinja2, pytest, ruff, and mypy. A deep understanding of static typing, particularly with Mypy, is highly valued, as it is integral to our development process.
• • You will be responsible for building and consuming REST APIs, ensuring seamless integration with internal and external systems. Experience with OpenAPI specifications for API documentation is essential. Furthermore, you will work extensively with relational databases, primarily PostgreSQL, designing efficient schemas and writing optimized queries. Familiarity with database migration tools like Alembic is also expected.
• • Containerization using Docker is a fundamental aspect of our development and deployment workflow. You will be proficient in creating and managing Docker images and using docker-compose for local development environments. The majority of our backend services are deployed as AWS Lambda functions, requiring hands-on experience with serverless architectures. This includes working with other AWS services such as S3 for object storage, RDS for managed relational databases, API Gateway for managing API endpoints, SQS for message queuing, SNS for notifications, and SES for email services.
• • Beyond the core responsibilities, you will have the opportunity to explore and integrate with a variety of other technologies. This includes leveraging Redis for caching and session management, and potentially working with GCP services like Vertex AI (specifically for Gemini) and BigQuery for analytics. Experience with OCR engines such as AWS Textract, GDocAI, or TesseractOCR will be beneficial for our risk digitization efforts.
• • You will also contribute to our CI/CD pipelines, potentially using CircleCI, and gain exposure to infrastructure as code practices with Terraform. Monitoring and logging are critical for maintaining system health, and experience with tools like DataDog is a plus. Security is paramount, and familiarity with Auth0 for authentication and authorization, as well as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) principles, is important. Understanding JSON Schema for data validation and Pusher for real-time notifications will also be advantageous.
• • We encourage proactive problem-solving and a continuous learning mindset. You will be expected to participate in code reviews, contribute to architectural discussions, and mentor junior engineers. The ability to work effectively in a remote, distributed team environment is crucial. This role offers a unique chance to be at the forefront of AI-driven innovation in the insurance sector, shaping both the industry and your own career trajectory.
• • Cytora is committed to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, and continuous professional growth. We believe in empowering our employees with the tools, resources, and autonomy they need to succeed. This role is an excellent opportunity to join a mission-driven company that values its people and is dedicated to building the future of insurance, together.