Senior Backend Engineer Returns Portal

At parcelLab were reshaping how the worlds leading brands manage the post-purchase experience.

Our post-purchase platform helps companies like John Lewis Chicos Yeti AllSaints and others transform every touchpoint into moments that drive customer engagement build loyalty and create customers for life.

Were looking for a Senior Backend Engineer a productfocused builder with strong agency to help evolve our Returns Portal a whitelabel SaaS used by customers in 175 countries. Youll work on a largescale Django application with a modern Python toolchain (uv/mypy/Ruff/Pydantic) and a serverdriven UI stack (HTMX/Alpine).

The role:

You will design and evolve the backend systems behind our returns experiencesowning problems endtoend: clarify outcomes collaborate with Product and Design and ship reliable observable services that make returns fast clear and correct.

What youll do:

• Lead services & workflows from concept to impact: model data implement APIs and jobs instrument launch and iterate.

• Design and evolve domain models & rules for returns (RMAs eligibility routing bundles) with safe migrations and clear boundaries.

• Build and maintain APIs (REST/GraphQL) and endpoints that power our serverdriven UI (HTMX/Alpine).

• Integrate with commerce systems (e.g. Shopify) and order/warehouse tools: design and operate API/webhook integrations keep orders and RMAs in sync and ensure idempotent reliable synchronization and backfills.

• Raise the bar on engineering practices: typing (mypy) validation (Pydantic) code quality (Ruff) CI/CD and thoughtful reviews.

• Own quality in production: monitor performance and error rates; fix what you ship.

What were looking for:

• Proficiency with Python in production ideally (nice to have) with Django.

• Strong SQL fundamentals relational modeling and safe migrations.

• Experience building APIs (REST) and working with job queues.

• Comfort with modern Python tooling: uv mypy Ruff Pydantic.

• Testing mindset (unit/integration) and continuous delivery knowhow.

• Evidence of agency: stories where you drove an outcome endtoend.

Bonus Points:

• Experience with serverdriven UIs (Django templates HTMX/Alpine).

• Tailwind CSS and solid CSS fundamentals (layout responsive a11y) for pragmatic UI tweaks in serverrendered templates.

• Shopify ecosystem exposure (Admin API webhooks embedded apps).

• Ecommerce/returns domain familiarity (bundles routing warehousing).

• Observability and SLO practice (metrics tracing error budgets); performance tuning in Django at scale.

Our stack:

(you dont need all of this)

Python 3.14 Django HTMX/ (serverdriven UI) mypy Ruff Pydantic uv; PostgreSQL (relational) Redis a job queue (Celery) REST API / GraphQL AWS Terraform GitHub Actions feature flags Sentry/Datadog observability.

Why join parcelLab:

• Youll join a passionate and collaborative global team with plenty of room to grow

• Competitive salary benefits

• A culture that values creativity experimentation and ownership

Perks & Benefits:

Plenty of room for your own to try fail and learn!

Comprehensiveday onboarding plan in place from the very first day to help you integrate seamlessly with the rest of the company and understand new responsibilities

As a digital-first company you choose whether to work entirely from home in one of our offices or a mix that suits you. Not close to one of our offices No problem! Find yourself a co-working space instead and well pay

Make use of our home office set-up budget to get kitted out (a spacious desk comfy chair some houseplants or great tech accessories!) and all this alongside the latest MacBook or PC

Career development opportunities including our Leadership Development Program and our Future Leaders Program as well as online language courses available budgets for further training and access to LinkedIn Learning

Stay grounded with our free meditation mindfulness and coaching sessions via our mental wellbeing platform

Regular company retreats parcelLab events (in-person and online) local and regional meet-ups as well as team off-sites

Be part of a motivated diverse and international team made up of over 34 different nationalities; and with a five-star rating for company culture and employee experience on Glassdoor youll love working here!

About parcelLab

We bring people and brands closer together by closing the experience gap post-sales and beyond transforming operational complexity into opportunities to outperform for 550 brands worldwide including IKEA Bose Farfetch and Nespresso.

With offices in Munich London and Boston we have been highlighted by the Financial Times as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Europe in 2021.

Its all in a days work for us:

• Monitor over six million shipments per day

• Now actively managing operations experiences in 153 countries across the globe

• Send around thirteen million pro-active personalized event-driven emails

• Shipping data comes from more than 150 carriers worldwide including DHL FedEx & DPD

• Creating over 40 million reasons for people to fall in love with brands each day

For brands that means more chances to create relationships that last. And for the people that buy from them it means turning mundane operational moments into moments of joy!

Equal Opportunities

parcelLab is an Equal Opportunities Employer. We live the motto always joy always team always equality which means we celebrate diversity and do not accept any form of discrimination or harassment. We believe that diversity enriches our employee experience and allows each of us to deliver the best work possible.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race colour religion sex sexual orientation gender perception or identity national origin age marital status disability status or other lived experience.

Come be part of our growth contribute your ideas and share in our success as we continue to improve the post-sales customer journey for millions of people every day.