Senior Software Engineer 1 , Backend

Interview Kickstart is a premier career transformation platform turbocharging tech careers through AI upskilling.

Founded in 2014 in Santa Clara by Soham Mehta, ex-Box Engineering Leader, and Ryan Valles, a transformative P&L leader and former CEO with a track record of scaling ventures, Interview Kickstart’s vision is to help every tech professional thrive in today’s fast-evolving tech industry.

With 40+ domain-specific courses—from foundational Machine Learning and Generative AI to Agentic AI, System Design, and DSA—Interview Kickstart equips engineers, PMs, data professionals, and tech leaders to accelerate their careers. Its 600+ instructors—industry practitioners, hiring managers, and senior engineers from FAANG+ companies—bring real-world insight and cutting-edge expertise into every classroom.

Beyond upskilling, Interview Kickstart offers end-to-end career support. Personalized mock interviews, resume and LinkedIn branding, career coaching, salary negotiation guidance, and performance-based job referrals ensure that your AI upskilling translates into real career breakthroughs. Over 25,000 professionals have already advanced their careers through Interview Kickstart.

Recognized by TIME x Statista and GSV 150 as a top EdTech company, Interview Kickstart is the go-to platform for tech professionals looking to future-proof their careers in the age of AI.

Let's start with who we are:

Interviews can be hard, especially at top tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix. Many candidates fall short simply because they aren’t adequately prepared. That’s where we come in. Our acclaimed courses specialize in interview preparation and transitioning into high-demand tech fields such as AI, ML, and Data Science. At Interview Kickstart, current and former hiring managers have guided over 25,000 tech professionals through transformative career journeys, ensuring their success in landing coveted positions. Think of us as “the everything store” for career transitions and interview skill development.

How do we do that, you ask?

We have a structured approach to interview success, which includes:

• Career Accelerator Course

• Comprehensive end-to-end courses and platform

• A roster of over 600+ instructors from leading Silicon Valley companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix

• A holistic approach that includes live classes, mock interviews, personalized coaching, resume refinement, career strategies, and invaluable referrals

What’s more exciting is that we are completely remote and hiring the best people we can find regardless of geography.

Role Overview:

• Serve as the technical leader for “one development pod”, providing technical leadership and guidance to ensure the delivery of high-quality, reliable, and scalable software solutions.

• Collaborate closely with tech leads, engineering managers, and product managers to define project scopes, goals, and deliverables aligned with the organization's strategic objectives.

• Design and architect robust back-end systems, ensuring they meet the company's long-term scalability, performance, and maintainability requirements.

• Mentor and support the professional development of junior developers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, continuous learning, and innovation.

• Lead code reviews, advocate for best coding practices, and maintain high standards for code quality, security, and performance.

• Actively contribute to the development of critical features and components, demonstrating best practices in coding and architecture.

• Identify, evaluate, and integrate new tools and technologies that can improve team productivity, code quality, and product functionality.

• Manage the technical debt effectively, prioritizing refactoring and updates to ensure the long-term health of the codebase.

• Participate in on-call rotations, leading the troubleshooting and resolution of production issues to maintain the high availability and performance of applications.

• Participate in the recruitment and onboarding of new engineers, upholding the team's technical standards.

• Additionally, if you have experience/interest in front-end development, you will be contributing to front-end development in NextJS and jQuery.

What would excite you?

• Work from anywhere, forever. All roles at IK are forever remote!

• Cutting-edge technology stack

• Complete ownership; there is minimal management and extreme autonomy

• High pedigree, high caliber team

• Contribute directly to the success of the business & the top-line impact

• Rapid career progression for high performers.

What would excite us?

• 3.5+ years of experience in Python and Django/Django REST framework (DRF).

• A solid understanding of RESTful API design, development, and architecture best practices. A solid understanding of MySQL, Git, and GitHub/GitLab.

• A solid understanding of DevOps (CI/CD pipelines, AWS, etc.).

• Full-stack development experience will be a BIG plus. Or at least a decent understanding of the front end is a MUST, as you will also guide and mentor front-end developers.

• Experience leading a development team in the past is a MUST.

• Experience delivering “multiple” large complex projects.

• Experience with agile methodologies, capable of driving sprint planning, retrospectives, and daily stand-ups.

• Good problem-solving skills. (Ability to solve medium data structures and algorithms problems).

• Good debugging and online searching skills.

• Good communication skills.

• Good understanding of Agile Methodologies and Jira.