Python developer job description template (2026)
A complete Python developer job description you can copy, plus seniority levels, writing tips and what strong candidates look for in a post.
By the Ryz Labs team · Updated October 2026
A Python developer job description should say which kind of Python the person will write. "Python developer" covers web backend engineers, data engineers, automation specialists and people building AI backends, and a post that lists all of them attracts none of them. The template below is written for a senior backend Python developer working on APIs and services. Copy it, swap in your stack and product details, and cut anything that does not apply to your team.
Python developer job description template
Job title
Senior Python Developer (Backend, APIs and Services)
Employment type: full-time or contract. Location: remote, with at least four hours of overlap with US Eastern time.
About the role
We are looking for a senior Python developer to design, build and run the backend services behind [product name]. You will own APIs that [customers / internal teams] depend on every day, work closely with product and front-end engineers, and help set the standards for how we write, test and ship Python. Our backend is [FastAPI / Django] on [AWS / Azure / GCP], with Postgres as our main datastore. You will join a team of [number] engineers and report to [title].
Responsibilities
- Design and build REST and async APIs in FastAPI or Django REST Framework, with typed request and response models.
- Own services end to end: design docs, implementation, tests, deployment, monitoring and on-call fixes.
- Model data in Postgres, write efficient queries through SQLAlchemy or the Django ORM, and plan safe schema migrations.
- Build and maintain background jobs and queues with Celery, RQ or a cloud-native queue, including retries and idempotency.
- Integrate third-party APIs and internal services with clear timeouts, error handling and observability.
- Find and fix performance problems using profilers, query plans and production metrics.
- Write unit, integration and contract tests with pytest, and keep the suite fast enough that people run it.
- Review pull requests with useful, specific feedback and help less experienced engineers improve their Python.
- Improve tooling: type checking, linting, packaging and CI pipelines.
- Work with product managers to break features into shippable increments and flag technical risks early.
Requirements
- 5+ years of professional software development, with at least 3 years writing production Python.
- Strong command of modern Python 3: type hints, dataclasses or Pydantic models, context managers and generators.
- Production experience with at least one web framework: FastAPI, Django or Flask.
- Working knowledge of asyncio and when async helps or hurts compared with threads or processes.
- Solid SQL and relational modeling skills, ideally with Postgres, including indexing and transaction behavior.
- Experience testing Python code with pytest, fixtures and mocks, and designing code that is easy to test.
- Comfort deploying containerized services to a major cloud provider and reading logs and metrics to debug them.
- Experience with Git-based workflows, code review and CI/CD.
- Clear written English for design docs, pull request descriptions and async communication.
Nice to have
- Experience with Celery, Kafka, SQS or another message broker at meaningful volume.
- Data tooling such as pandas, Polars or Airflow.
- Experience integrating LLM APIs or building retrieval pipelines in Python.
- Infrastructure as code with Terraform or AWS CDK.
- Profiling with py-spy or Scalene, or writing Rust or C extensions for hot paths.
- Open source contributions to Python libraries.
Tech stack
Python 3.12, FastAPI, Pydantic, SQLAlchemy 2.0, Postgres, Redis, Celery, pytest, Ruff, mypy, Docker, GitHub Actions, AWS (ECS, RDS, SQS), Datadog. Replace this list with your real stack; candidates read it closely.
What success looks like in 6 months
- You have shipped at least two meaningful features to production and own one service as its primary maintainer.
- You have reduced a known pain point, such as a slow endpoint, a flaky test suite or a manual deployment step.
- Your pull request reviews are trusted, and newer engineers seek you out for help with Python design questions.
- You have written at least one design doc that the team used to make a technical decision.
How to apply and interview process
Send your resume or LinkedIn profile and a short note about a Python system you built or improved. Our process has four steps: a 30-minute intro call, a technical conversation about a system you have worked on, a practical exercise or pairing session on a realistic backend problem, and a final conversation with the team you would join. We aim to give feedback within a few days of each step.
Junior vs mid vs senior Python developer
Hire for the level of ownership you need. A senior title on a role with junior scope frustrates the person, and a junior hire on a role that needs architecture decisions will stall.
| Level | Scope | Typical experience | Key skills |
|---|
| Junior | Well-defined tickets inside an existing service, with review from senior engineers | 0-2 years | Core Python syntax and data structures, basic SQL, writing pytest tests, reading existing code |
| Mid-level | Features end to end within one service, including tests and deployment | 2-5 years | One framework in depth, ORM performance, async basics, API design, debugging production issues |
| Senior | Service and system design, technical direction for a team, mentoring | 5+ years | Architecture trade-offs, concurrency models, data modeling, observability, reviewing others' designs |
Tips for writing a Python developer job description that attracts senior talent
- Name the kind of Python. Say whether the work is web APIs, data pipelines, automation or AI backends. Senior engineers filter roles by this before anything else.
- List your real versions. "Python 3.12 and Django 5" signals a maintained codebase. Leaving versions out makes candidates wonder if you are still on Python 2.
- Describe one hard problem. A sentence like "our ingestion API handles bursts of 5,000 requests per second" tells a senior developer more than ten bullet points about "scalable systems". Use a real number from your product, not an invented one.
- Cut the framework laundry list. Requiring Django, Flask, FastAPI, Tornado and Pyramid reads as if no one knows what the stack is. Require one, mention others as a plus.
- Be honest about legacy code. If the job includes migrating an older codebase, say so. Experienced developers often like that work, but they dislike finding out after they join.
- Explain how decisions get made. Senior candidates want to know whether they will write design docs, choose libraries and influence architecture, or just close tickets.
- Keep the interview process short and stated. Listing the steps up front signals respect for the candidate's time, and strong Python developers usually have several processes running at once.
Skip the job post: hire a vetted senior Python developer
Writing a good job description is the first step of a hiring cycle that can run for months. If you need senior Python capacity sooner, Ryz Labs can match you with senior Python developers from Latin America who join your team, your repos and your standups and work within an hour of US time zones. Only the top 1% of the engineers we interview make it through our vetting, which covers Python internals, system design and debugging.
Our staff augmentation model lets you add one developer or several without rewriting your process. Ryz engineers work on your team and report to your leads. Talk to us to scope the team you need. If you are still running your own hiring loop, our Python interview questions cover the topics we test for and what strong answers sound like.
FAQ
What should a Python developer job description include?
A clear job title with seniority, a short description of the product and team, specific responsibilities, realistic requirements, your actual tech stack, what success looks like after a few months and the steps of the interview process. Leave out generic filler such as "rockstar" or "fast-paced environment".
How many years of experience should a senior Python developer have?
Most senior Python roles ask for five or more years of professional development, with at least three in production Python. Weigh scope over years: someone who has designed and run a service under real load is often more senior than someone with more years on narrow tickets.
Should I ask for Django or FastAPI experience?
Ask for the framework you use. Good Python developers move between frameworks quickly, so list your framework as a requirement only if the role needs deep knowledge from day one, such as a large Django codebase with custom ORM patterns. Otherwise, list it as preferred.
Questions we didn't answer? Email info@ryzlabs.com.