Backend Engineer

Descrial; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Office in central London (King's Cross

Competitive compensation

Collaborative environment

Executive Committee access

Job summary

Descrial is seeking a Back-End Engineer for its UK core team in central London. You will build multi-tenant services and the integration layer between Java/Spring and Python AI services, emphasising security, observability, and reliability.

You will work with AWS, CI/CD, and OpenTelemetry, contributing to production SaaS at scale. The role offers collaboration with senior leadership and a tight-knit team in the London office.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend engineering in production SaaS or platform environments.
• Real multi-tenant or enterprise-grade system experience: isolation, permissions, auditability.
• Strong Python (FastAPI or comparable) and solid SQL/PostgreSQL; ability to work at Java/Spring service boundaries.
• AWS production experience; Git, CI/CD, Linux as second nature.
• You build with AI coding tools daily (Cursor, Claude Code or comparable) and have a considered view of where they help and where they do not.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship REST and async services in Python 3.11+ / FastAPI with PostgreSQL persistence.
• Implement multi-tenant patterns: isolation, tenant context, and RBAC.
• Own API contracts between core services and AI services; version and evolve them safely.
• Write comprehensive unit and integration tests (pytest / pytest-asyncio).
• Build observability: OpenTelemetry traces, structured logs, metrics, alerts, and cost-aware AI model calls.
• Enforce security fundamentals: authN/authZ, secrets, input validation, and audit trails.
• Deploy and operate services on AWS (EKS/ECS, RDS, S3) via Jenkins CI/CD.

Skills

Backend engineering

Python

SQL/PostgreSQL

AWS

CI/CD

Linux

AI coding tools

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or computer science

Tools

FastAPI

pytest

OpenTelemetry

PostgreSQL

SQLAlchemy

AWS

Jenkins CI/CD

Git

Job description

Descrial is an AI work-execution platform purpose-built for alternative investment firms and their portfolio companies and securely orchestrates proprietary data, external sources, and workflows. Descrial is an important pillar of Enterprise Intelligence Orchestration (EIO) and enables it by structuring and standardizing data while embedding domain expertise, thereby enabling faster and contextual analysis, broader coverage, and more intelligent decision-making. It is backed by TresVista's 1,800+ employees and deep domain expertise across investment diligence, research, valuation, fund administration, accounting, and data analytics. The team is small, senior, high-ownership, and in-office, with direct access to the Executive Committee.

OVERVIEW

As a Back-End Engineer on the UK core team, you will build the services that the product runs on: multi-tenant APIs, workflow and data services, and the integration layer between the Java/Spring core platform and Python AI services. The work is production engineering for demanding enterprise users — security, auditability, and reliability are features, not chores — shipped through disciplined CI/CD alongside the Bengaluru delivery organisation.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Service design and build

• Design and ship REST and async services in Python 3.11+ / FastAPI and at the boundaries of the Java/Spring core, with PostgreSQL (async SQLAlchemy) persistence
• Implement multi-tenant patterns properly: isolation, tenant context, role-based access, and per-tenant configuration
• Own API contracts between core services and AI services; version and evolve them without breaking consumers
• Write comprehensive unit and integration tests (pytest / pytest-asyncio); hold the line on code review standards
• Build for observability: OpenTelemetry traces, structured logs, metrics, and actionable alerts — including token cost, model-call latency and failure rates for the AI services you sit alongside
• Build quality gates for probabilistic outputs: validation, schema enforcement and safe failure behaviour when an AI service returns something well-formed but wrong
• Handle security fundamentals as routine: authN/authZ, secrets, input validation, OWASP awareness, audit trails

Cloud and delivery

• Deploy and operate services on AWS (EKS/ECS patterns, RDS, S3) through Jenkins CI/CD with quality gates
• Contribute to performance and cost tuning: query optimisation, caching, async throughput, and right-sizing
• Support LLM-adjacent workloads: queueing, rate limiting, and cost-aware orchestration of model-calling services

WHO YOU ARE

Prerequisites

• Real multi-tenant or enterprise-grade system experience: isolation, permissions, auditability
• 5+ years of backend engineering in production SaaS or platform environments
• Strong Python (FastAPI or comparable) and solid SQL/PostgreSQL; ability to work at Java/Spring service boundaries
• AWS production experience; Git, CI/CD, Linux as second nature
• You build with AI coding tools daily (Cursor, Claude Code or comparable) and have a considered view of where they help and where they do not

Good to have

• Event-driven architectures, queues, and workflow engines
• Financial-services or regulated-industry systems
• Exposure to LLM service integration patterns

EDUCATION

Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

WHAT WE OFFER

• You will be working closely with the Executive Committee who have over 20 years of experience in leading a company with 400+ leading clients in the alternative investment space
• Competitive compensation
• Opportunity to build something impactful for established and leading companies in the financial services industry
• Innovative, supportive, and collaborative work environment
• Office in central London (King's Cross)

HOW WE HIRE

• Stage 1: Introductory conversation
• Stage 2: Technical assessment
• Stage 3: Interview with a senior member of the team
• Stage 4: Final interview with a member of the Executive Committee