Senior Backend Engineer (Django)

About us

Photoroom launched in 2020 after being accepted into Y Combinator and has become the world's most popular AI photo editor over the past four years. Our goal is to create the technology allowing anyone create studio-level product images in minutes.

With over 300 million downloads and processing 5+ billion images annually, we serve both individual creators and major enterprises like Amazon, DoorDash, and Decathlon through our B2C app and B2B API solutions.

We're a profitable, remote-friendly company that has raised Series B funding and aims for 40% year-over-year growth. Our team of 100+ passionate builders focuses on craft, innovation, and collaboration, creating exceptional impact for entrepreneurs and businesses worldwide.

We’re looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to own and evolve a critical part of our Django backend: the systems that power login, content, teams, and what users see the moment they open Photoroom. The challenge is in scaling a high-traffic system, reducing real maintenance debt, and making performance trade-offs where milliseconds matter. You’ll work closely with frontend engineers and product owners, with real autonomy to ship fast and build for scale.

Learn more about some of the challenges we work on from this blogpost (dated Oct 2024)

Compensation: up to 110k £/€ + Stock-Options/BSPCE

Location: Remote across Europe with quarterly Paris office visits (fully reimbursed)

About the Role

• Own backend work end to end: from architectural decisions and implementation to release monitoring and production performance (Datadog).

• Ship frequently and iterate fast, using real user feedback and usage data to guide technical and product decisions.

• Work closely with product and frontend engineers to design and deliver user-facing experiences, not just APIs.

• Optimize and evolve high-traffic endpoints, reducing latency and ensuring the system scales reliably as usage grows.

About You

• You have 5+ years of experience in backend development with Django and Django Rest Framework

• You have experience working with a relational database at scale, designing schemas, optimising Django queries, and running migrations with minimal downtime

• You have a hands-on experience with a PostgreSQL/MySQL database larger than 100 GB

• You have experience designing endpoints in direct collaboration with frontend engineers, delivering both Open API and developer manuals/supporting documentation

• You are always the most pragmatic person in the room. You favour speed of iteration over perfect, always leverage frameworks and libraries to avoid reinventing the wheel

• You have a strong sense of ownership. You take initiative and you are at ease to make product & technical decisions.

If you think you have what it takes but don't meet every single point above, please still apply. We'd love to chat and see if you could be a great fit.

Benefits

• Work flexibly from anywhere in Europe within a 3-hour flight from Paris (HQ)

• Regular team gatherings, including in-person onboarding in Paris (1-2 weeks), yearly company offsite and team retreat, quarterly in-person meetings (monthly during probation period), and social events like winter party and hackathons.

• 30 days annual leave plus local public holidays

• Competitive equity package with stock options/BSPCE, giving you ownership in our growing company

• €1000 one-time home office grant OR €400 per month co-working space stipend

• €1,000 annual learning and development budget for training, courses, books, and skill development

• Private health insurance

• Access to personalised mental health support, including 1:1 sessions with therapists or coaches, self-care tools, and well-being resources via MokaCare

• Sports and cultural activities reimbursement

• Relocation support (up to 10k) available for those choosing to move to France, including apartment finding and visa assistance.

Note: Visa sponsorship and relocation support are only available for positions based in France. We cannot sponsor visas for remote positions outside of France.

Hiring Process

1. Screening call with Talent Manager (30min)

2. Technical interview with Hiring Manager (45min)

3. Take-home assignment (duration varies by role) and live review with the team (45min)

4. Culture fit interviews and meet the team (~3h in total)

5. Reference check and offer

Support: We value diversity and aim to create an inclusive experience for all applicants. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make the process more accessible for you.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging

We're committed to enabling everyone to feel included and valued at work. We believe our company and culture are strongest when composed of diverse experiences and backgrounds.

That's also why we have flexible working hours, trust people to work remotely, and extended parental leave.

All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, family, gender identity, marital status, national origin, physical or mental disability, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws.