Senior Backend Engineer — Python/FastAPI, Remote

StepTo; Time; Remote; NOK 637,000 - 955,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first (Serbia) with optional Be

Top-of-market EUR salary

€1,500/year learning budget

25 days PTO

Flexible hours

Culture respects time outside work

Job summary

StepTo is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join a small, hands-on team building enterprise AI infrastructure for financial institutions. You’ll own end-to-end product and infrastructure work, shipping features from design to deployment on a Python/FastAPI backend that talks to PostgreSQL.

Remote-first in Serbia, with a focus on initiative, speed, and ownership. We offer top-of-market EUR salary, a €1,500/year learning budget, and 25 days PTO, plus flexible hours and a culture that respects

Qualifications

• Strong production Python development experience, backend services and APIs (FastAPI preferred).
• Solid PostgreSQL expertise: schema and data modeling, SQL, indexing, query planning, transaction behavior, and performance tuning.
• Systems engineering fundamentals: Linux/server environments, networking basics, concurrency, resource utilization, reliability, profiling, and debugging.
• Sound software architecture and engineering judgment: maintainable code, testing, observability, deployment, and scalability.
• End-to-end ownership: independently scope, implement, validate, and ship features.
• Clear communication and comfort working directly with founders.
• Practical, effective use of AI coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, or similar), with strong review and verification habits.
• Comfortable with ambiguity, startup mentality, initiative, and accountability.

Responsibilities

• Build and optimize a Python/FastAPI backend that interacts efficiently and reliably with PostgreSQL.
• Independently scope, implement, validate, and ship features from design through testing and deployment.
• Diagnose performance bottlenecks across the application, database, and server environment, and fix them at the root.
• Make sound architecture decisions that keep the codebase maintainable, observable, and scalable.
• Work directly with technical founders to turn ambiguous problems into simple, robust solutions.
• Use AI coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, or similar) effectively, backed by strong review and verification habits.
• Proactively identify improvements to the product, the infrastructure, and the way the team ships.

Skills

Python backend

FastAPI

PostgreSQL

System design

Linux

Performance optimization

AI tooling

End-to-end ownership

Communication with founders

Kubernetes

Tools

Claude Code

Codex

SQL tooling

Job description

StepTo is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join a small, hands-on team building enterprise AI infrastructure for financial institutions. You’ll own end-to-end product and infrastructure work, shipping features from design to deployment on a Python/FastAPI backend that talks to PostgreSQL.

Remote-first in Serbia, with a focus on initiative, speed, and ownership. We offer top-of-market EUR salary, a €1,500/year learning budget, and 25 days PTO, plus flexible hours and a culture that respects