Python Developer

Sanderson Government & Defence; City Of London; On-site; GBP 83,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanderson Government & Defence in London is seeking an experienced Python Developer to join a growing engineering team delivering secure, cloud-native solutions within a highly regulated environment. You will design, develop and maintain Python-based applications and shared libraries with a strong focus on logging, observability, security and AWS services (CloudWatch, S3, IAM).

The role involves Terraform infrastructure, CI/CD, collaboration across engineering, security and SRE teams, and

Qualifications

• Strong commercial experience with Python and Django.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain applications using Python and Django.

Skills

Python

Django

Logging / Observability

Security logging concepts

CI/CD practices

Git

Tools

Terraform

Git

Logstash

OpenSearch

CloudWatch

S3

IAM

Job description

Python Developer
1-2 days a week on-site in London
£450-£650 outside IR35
Requires Active SC Clearance

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Python Developer to join a growing engineering team delivering secure, cloud-native solutions within a highly regulated environment. You will be responsible for designing, developing and maintaining Python-based applications and shared libraries, with a strong focus on logging, observability, security, and AWS cloud services.

Working closely with developers, Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), and Security Operations Centre (SOC) teams, you will help define and implement logging standards, improve monitoring capabilities, and ensure security events are captured and delivered effectively across enterprise platforms.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain applications using Python and Django.
• Build and support shared Python libraries, ensuring appropriate versioning, testing and documentation.
• Implement structured logging and observability best practices across multiple services.
• Develop secure logging solutions that support operational monitoring, auditing and security investigations.
• Work with AWS services including CloudWatch, S3 and IAM.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure using Terraform.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines and collaborative development through Git and pull request workflows.
• Review and contribute to code within other teams' repositories.
• Work closely with engineering, security and operational teams to identify and resolve technical challenges.
• Produce technical documentation, integration guidance and implementation standards where required.

Essential Skills & Experience

Technical Skills

• Strong commercial experience with Python and Django.
• Knowledge of Python logging and structured logging frameworks.
• Understanding of security logging concepts, including:
• Audit events
• Access events
• Application events
• SOC monitoring requirements
• Experience with AWS, including:
• CloudWatch
• S3
• IAM
• Infrastructure as Code using Terraform.
• Experience building, testing and maintaining shared software libraries.
• Strong understanding of Git, pull requests and CI/CD practices.

Soft Skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with developers, SRE and security teams.
• Comfortable receiving feedback and iterating on solutions.
• Proactive approach to identifying risks and escalating blockers early.
• Strong collaborative mindset and ability to work across multiple teams.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Deep understanding of Django internals, including:
• Signals
• Middleware
• Authentication hooks
• Experience with Logstash configuration, filtering and parsing.
• Knowledge of centralised logging architectures and AWS cross-account log aggregation.
• Experience integrating log pipelines with SIEM platforms.
• Microsoft Sentinel, ASIM schemas and KQL.
• AWS service logging including:
• RDS PostgreSQL
• OpenSearch
• Redis/Valkey
• GuardDuty
• WAF
• CloudTrail
• NGINX and containerised logging solutions.
• Identity and access management concepts including OIDC and SAML.
• JSON Schema development and validation.
• Technical writing and creation of integration documentation.
• Threat modelling and security-focused development practices.

Additional Desirable Attributes

• Experience running technical workshops and presenting to mixed technical audiences.
• Ability to negotiate priorities and delivery scope with stakeholders and service teams.
• Passion for secure software engineering and continuous improvement.

Reasonable Adjustments:

Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients.

If you need any help or adjustments during the recruitment process for any reason, please let us know when you apply or talk to the recruiters directly so we can support you.