Backend Engineer - Python (London) London

We are a Series A stage firm, redefining the future of finance with our AI-native research and task automation platform, backed by leading global venture investors. Founded by a team of experts from Google DeepMind, Meta AI, and J.P. Morgan, Finster AI provides cutting-edge solutions to help finance professionals unlock unique insights with greater efficiency and accuracy.

We are building a well-rounded team with multi-disciplinary expertise across product, AI, finance, UI/UX, and engineering to help in our goal of building AI agents that can read, analyse and integrate disparate sources of financial and market data. We are building for the distinct demands of institutional investors, with accuracy, reliability and privacy at the core of our product.

The Role

• Help in the development and maintenance of the current Python application.
• Work on the development of new microservices, refactoring, and removing functionalities from the existing productive monolith.
• Build APIs and integrate using gRPC and Kafka, with a focus on scalable communication between services.
• Work on Kafka message-driven systems to ensure smooth data streams between microservices.
• Implement and optimize caching using Redis and Weaviate to improve system performance.
• Collaborate with the data team to integrate and manage MongoDB, Postgres and Vector DBs for data storage and retrieval.
• Deploy, monitor, and maintain services on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Contribute to system architecture design discussions to ensure a modular, scalable infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with AI teams to integrate new and existing AI agents and models into the microservices ecosystem.
• Help with the implementation of industry standards and good practices.

Who You Are

• Have 5+ years of experience working as a Backend Engineer in production environments.
• Have 3+ years of experience working with Python.
• A solid level of understanding of async, multithreading and concurrency/parallelism in Python.
• Have familiarity with building and maintaining REST APIs.
• Have experience with Kafka or similar message brokers.
• Are proficient in using non-relational databases (ideally MongoDB).
• Have had exposure to CI/CD environments, utilising containers with Docker and orchestrating microservices with tools like Kubernetes.
• Have a good understanding of software engineering best practices (standardised practices, version control, testing, code review, etc.).

You Will Thrive Here if You Have

• Experience with FastAPI and/or Uvicorn.
• Familiarity with Redis for caching and queueing mechanisms.
• Have a solid understanding of gRPC and building code for microservices-based architectures.
• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including deployments and cloud-native services.
• Had exposure to AI/ML solutions and integrating ML models into microservices.
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures and event-driven systems.
• Have worked in projects making big refactor to improve system performance, API latency, improving data layer and DB queries, etc.
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools like Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, etc.
• Previous experience working in fast-paced startups or dynamic environments.
• Had exposure to agile methodologies (Kanban, Scrum).
• Familiarity with user authentication and authorization flows.

Why Finster

• Impact: As an early-stage company, you will be part of the team shaping the foundation of one of the most exciting AI platforms in financial services.
• Exposure: You will work directly with senior technical leadership on critical projects.
• Growth: Be part of a company scaling rapidly after Series A, with opportunities to grow the scope and responsibility of your role.
• Exceptional team: We are a world-class team that combines expertise from AI labs (Google DeepMind, Meta AI) with leading Financial institutions (Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Rothschild & Co, Aviva Investors, Visible Alpha, Revolut).
• Culture: We deeply value collaboration, intellectual curiosity, disagreement and high performance.

Benefits at Finster AI

• 25 days PTO, excluding bank holidays.
• Flexible working - Our flexible work model aims to meet the needs of our diverse employee community by making work more flexible, connected, and inclusive. Depending on the role and needs of the team, Finster AI employees have the flexibility to work from home 2/3 days per week.
• Generous healthcare and dental package.

Next steps

At Finster AI we are committed to building an inclusive environment that attracts and retains the best talent from around the globe. We welcome applicants from different cultural and educational backgrounds and value curiosity, courage and determination to implement new ideas. If you are a self-starter that wants to have an impact on how Finster grows and develops, we want to hear from you. Eagerness to learn, attitude, and enthusiasm are more important than ticking all the boxes. Even if not all desired requirements are met, but you are very excited about the role, get in touch.

Please communicate any reasonable accommodations you may need for your interview.

If you believe you are a great candidate for Finster AI but don’t see a relevant open role, we encourage you to still get in touch. Send your resume and tell us why you want to join us to careers@finster.ai.