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ARCS

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Senior Python Developer

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Summary

Leads development and evolution of Python/Django platform services for production financial systems at ARCS in Johannesburg, from architecture through to cloud deployment. Core stack: Python, Django, AWS, Kubernetes and OpenShift/K3s, with mentoring, CI/CD and incident response responsibilities.

Duties & Responsibilities
  • Lead the development and ongoing evolution of Python/Django platform services, from requirements and architecture through to production deployment.
  • Translate complex and evolving business requirements into clear domain models with well-defined boundaries and ownership.
  • Apply Domain-Driven Design (DDD) principles and bounded contexts to production systems.
  • Assess the broader impact of technical decisions across operations, reporting, integrations, downstream capabilities and system configurations.
  • Establish appropriate separation between business rules, application boundaries and reusable platform capabilities.
  • Design systems that minimise duplicated logic, unnecessary coupling and architectural divergence.
  • Make pragmatic architectural decisions, introducing structure where it provides genuine value while avoiding unnecessary abstraction.
  • Evolve production systems through backward-compatible changes, safe migrations and incremental/phased rollouts.
  • Apply appropriate migration strategies, including expand-and-contract patterns where required.
  • Design systems for correctness and resilience under retries, failures and recovery scenarios.
  • Build auditability, data lineage, observability and appropriate failure handling into production systems.
  • Design, build and maintain backend systems within cloud and containerised environments.
  • Work with technologies and platforms including AWS, Kubernetes and OpenShift/K3s .
  • Contribute to technical direction across codebases, APIs and data models.
  • Evaluate where capabilities should reside within core platform functionality versus client-specific implementations.
  • Review technical designs and ensure they align with agreed engineering standards.
  • Mentor junior and mid-level developers through code reviews, technical guidance and knowledge sharing.
  • Take ownership of technical delivery and proactively identify architectural, implementation and operational risks.
  • Champion reusable CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, effective release practices and cloud-native engineering standards.
  • Support secure packaging and deployment of application artefacts, including offline and on-premises deployment mechanisms where required.
  • Participate in rotational production support and lead incident response when necessary.
  • Promote high standards of reliability, security and confidentiality when developing and supporting production financial systems.
  • Use AI-assisted development tools responsibly to improve delivery speed while maintaining code quality, security and appropriate review standards.

Requirements

Essential Experience

  • 5+ years of hands-on Python development experience.
  • Previous experience within the Fintech industry is essential.
  • Strong experience building production applications using Python frameworks and libraries.
  • Experience with Django is preferred.
  • Experience working with well-structured domain models and clearly defined service boundaries.
  • Strong understanding of separation of business concerns within production systems.
  • Experience developing applications for cloud and containerised environments.
  • Practical exposure to AWS, Kubernetes and/or OpenShift/K3s .
  • Experience working with live production systems and safely implementing migrations, backward-compatible changes and phased rollouts.
  • Experience within regulated environments, particularly banking or financial services , is strongly preferred.

Technical & Professional Skills

  • Strong technical judgement and the ability to evaluate architectural trade-offs.
  • Ability to understand and contribute to wider architectural and structural decisions.
  • Strong systems-thinking capability and an understanding of the downstream impact of technical decisions.
  • Ability to work effectively with ambiguity and constructively challenge requirements or technical designs when appropriate.
  • Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
  • Strong understanding of production reliability, security and confidentiality.
  • Ability to collaborate effectively within a technical team and contribute to a shared engineering vision.
  • Strong mentoring mindset with the ability to support and develop junior and mid-level developers.
  • Ability to take ownership of technical delivery and proactively identify risks.
  • Comfortable working within CI/CD, automated testing and modern cloud-native engineering practices.
  • Responsible and effective use of AI-assisted development tools while maintaining engineering quality and security standards.

Education

  • Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field; or equivalent practical experience .

See also

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