Senior Python Backend Developer

Squla; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

24 vacation days + 3 assigned days off + 1 skipping school day

Collective pension and health insurance

€600 annual learning budget

Unlimited access to external coaches

Healthy lunches and snacks at the office

Fun team activities organized by Culture Crew

Job summary

Squla in Amsterdam is looking for a Senior Backend Developer to help build their platform for children's learning. Your role involves leading technical decision-making, combining hands-on development with mentoring team members, and ensuring technical quality.

You will work with a tech stack including Python, React, and AWS, and implement AI-driven development workflows. A supportive work environment with considerable autonomy awaits you.

Qualifications

• Solid experience as a Senior Backend Developer building production systems.
• Strong Python experience and confidence in making technical decisions.
• Experience designing API-driven backend architectures and data modeling at scale.

Responsibilities

• Lead backend planning and technical decision-making with the PM and team.
• Set up guardrails and architecture for safe team contributions.
• Act as a technical mentor and foster a strong engineering culture.

Skills

Python

API-driven backend architectures

Software design patterns

Automated testing

Team mentoring

Fluency in English

Tools

AWS

MySQL

Job description

A Senior Backend Developer will help build Squla, the platform that enables children to learn through play daily, and shape its technical direction and the way our engineering team works.

What will you do?

As a Senior Backend Developer in our Primary Education team, you will build Squla and shape its technical direction and the way our engineering team works. This role involves ownership, autonomy, and the opportunity to combine hands‑on development with technical leadership, mentoring, and architectural decision‑making.

Your role and impact

• Lead backend planning and technical decision‑making together with the PM and your multidisciplinary team
• Define how we use AI in engineering: design workflows around agent delegation, parallel execution and review guardrails so the team gains speed without losing quality or accountability
• Own significant technical areas and stay accountable for technical quality, system health and maintainability over time
• Set up the guardrails, reviews and architecture that allow colleagues from other disciplines to contribute safely, including AI‑assisted contributions headed for production
• Work broadly across the stack where it keeps momentum high: backend first, frontend, data and infrastructure when useful
• Take ownership of team results: you ship, measure whether it moved learning and business outcomes, and act on what you find
• Act as a technical mentor and sparring partner for the team
• Foster a strong engineering culture through code reviews, knowledge sharing, and collaboration

Our stack

• Python back‑end
• React front‑end
• AWS

Who are you?

You enjoy taking ownership, making technical decisions, and helping others grow. You thrive in an environment where your ideas matter, your expertise is trusted, and your work has visible impact.

You bring

• Solid experience as a Senior Backend Developer building production systems
• Strong Python experience and confidence owning technical decisions from idea to production and beyond
• You have made agent‑driven development your daily reality: you delegate complete tasks to coding agents, often several in parallel, you know where they shine and where they quietly fail, and you have ideas about what a team‑wide agentic workflow should look like
• Experience designing API‑driven backend architectures and data modeling at scale, especially with relational databases like MySQL
• A deep understanding of software design patterns, automated testing, and clean code practices
• The judgment to balance speed against maintainability, security and technical risk
• Experience mentoring engineers and reviewing production‑bound work from others
• Comfort working from goals and ambiguity in a multidisciplinary team
• Fluency in English, written and spoken

Nice to have

• Hands‑on experience with AWS or other cloud platforms

What do we offer

• 24 vacation days + 3 assigned days off + 1 skipping school day
• Collective pension and health insurance
• A €600 annual learning budget for your professional development
• Unlimited access to external coaches through Inuka Coaching
• Unlimited access to Goodhabitz training programs for professional and personal growth
• Lifetime access to StudyGo and Squla accounts
• A MacBook for work
• Payroll Giving option to contribute to a good cause
• Healthy lunches at the office, unlimited good coffee, fresh fruit, and snacks
• A Culture Crew that organizes fun activities such as outings, pub quizzes, ski trips, and laser tag