Role: Lead Backend Engineer – Python, FastAPI & Event-Driven Systems
Location: Tempe, AZ(Onsite)
Job Summary
Photon is seeking a Lead Backend Engineer (Python) to drive the architecture, development, and delivery of scalable, cloud-native backend platforms for a large-scale e-commerce and loyalty ecosystem in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) domain.
This role combines hands-on engineering excellence with technical leadership, owning backend system design while mentoring teams and ensuring high-quality delivery across multiple workstreams. The Lead Backend Engineer will build and orchestrate high-performance APIs, event-driven microservices, and data transformation pipelines using Python (FastAPI) and AWS-native services.
You will play a critical role in enabling digital ordering, loyalty, identity, and customer engagement journeys, working closely with product, architecture, DevOps, and frontend teams to deliver resilient, scalable, and business-aligned solutions.
Experience with Paytronix or similar loyalty platforms and strong familiarity with QSR workflows is highly preferred.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Leadership & Architecture
- Own the backend architecture for e-commerce, loyalty, and digital engagement platforms in the QSR domain.
- Lead the design and development of cloud-native, stateless microservices using Python (FastAPI).
- Define and enforce engineering standards, best practices, and design patterns across backend teams.
- Design hub-and-spoke orchestration services to abstract integrations across loyalty, identity, CMS, payments, and commerce systems.
Event Processing & Data Transformation
- Architect and implement event-driven systems using asynchronous programming, pub-sub patterns, message queues, and streaming platforms.
- Lead event processing and data transformation workflows, ensuring efficient handling of high-volume, real-time customer and transaction data.
- Apply strong data structure and algorithmic fundamentals to optimize system performance, latency, and scalability.
- Design resilient systems with idempotency, retries, DLQs, and graceful degradation strategies.
Database & Persistence Layer
- Lead the design and implementation of database solutions across SQL and NoSQL technologies based on workload characteristics.
- Design, optimize, and govern relational databases (SQL) for transactional and reporting use cases.
- Architect implement NoSQL data models using cloud-native databases such as Amazon DynamoDB and Azure Cosmos DB, ensuring scalability and low-latency access.
- Define best practices for data partitioning, indexing, caching, and consistency models in distributed databases.
- Ensure data solutions support QSR-scale traffic, peak loads, and global availability requirement
API & Platform Engineering
- Build and govern production-grade REST APIs with robust authentication, authorization, validation, and error handling.
- Design and optimize API gateways, proxy layers, caching strategies, and traffic orchestration for high-throughput environments.
- Ensure secure integration with identity providers, loyalty platforms (Paytronix preferred), payment systems, CMS, and commerce backends.
Cloud, DevOps & Observability
- Lead backend solutions on AWS, leveraging services such as Lambda, ECS/EKS, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Redis, and MSK/Kafka.
- Drive Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and support CI/CD pipelines with automated testing and progressive delivery.
- Ensure production-grade observability using OpenTelemetry, centralized logging, metrics, and distributed tracing.
QSR Domain Alignment
- Ensure backend solutions align with QSR operational needs, including ordering flows, checkout, payments, loyalty accrual/redemption, and customer engagement funnels.
- Partner with product and business stakeholders to translate customer journeys and commerce workflows into scalable backend capabilities.
Team Leadership & Collaboration
- Mentor backend engineers through code reviews, design sessions, and technical coaching.
- Act as a technical leader and escalation point for backend systems across programs.
- Collaborate closely with architects, product owners, QA, DevOps, and frontend teams in an Agile delivery model.
Required Qualifications
- 8-12 years of backend engineering experience, with strong hands-on development in Python.
- Deep expertise in FastAPI, REST API design, and asynchronous programming (async/await).
- Proven experience designing and leading event-driven architectures (pub-sub, queues, streaming).
- Strong understanding of data structures, data transformation, and high-performance backend design.
- Hands-on experience building cloud-native microservices on AWS.
- Experience owning or leading backend architecture for distributed systems at scale.
- Solid understanding of e-commerce platforms, digital funnels, loyalty programs, identity workflows, and customer journeys—preferably in QSR or retail.
- Experience with Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, and modern DevOps practices.
- Strong communication and leadership skills, with experience working in cross-functional Agile teams.
Nice to Have
- Direct experience with Paytronix or similar enterprise loyalty platforms.
- Experience in QSR, retail, hospitality, or large-scale consumer digital platforms.
- Exposure to Kafka, RabbitMQ, or AWS MSK.
- Experience with feature flags, canary deployments, and blue-green releases.
- Knowledge of OAuth2, JWT, identity federation, and API security best practices
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