Senior Python/Django Engineer in London

About RWS

RWS is a content solutions company, powered by technology and human expertise. We grow the value of ideas, data and content by making sure organizations are understood. Our proprietary technology, 45+ AI patents and human experts help organizations bring ideas to market faster, build deeper relationships across borders and cultures, and enter new markets with confidence - growing their business and connecting them to a world of opportunities. It’s why over 80 of the world’s top 100 brands trust RWS to drive innovation, inform decisions and shape brand experiences.

RWS Protect is one of the world’s largest providers of services to those needing to protect their Intellectual Property. In this age of AI the protection of ideas & creativity is more important than ever, so we are creating the first AI powered toolset to meet this demand.

We are seeking a Senior Python Django Backend Developer to join us as we build this new generation of AI-powered IP protection tools. You will play a key part in turning our ambitions into reliable, production-grade software. You'll own the Django services, APIs and integrations that power our core applications, including connecting AI capabilities to the data and workflows our clients depend on. You'll deliver new features, improve performance and keep our back-end platform modern, secure and scalable as demand grows. Alongside delivery, you'll help shape the technical direction of the Back End team: raising the bar on architecture and code quality and bringing shared patterns across our services closer together so we can build and ship faster with confidence.

Please note that this is a hybrid role at either our Sheffield or London office.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and delivery of back-end features, APIs and integrations across our core applications, from requirement through to release.
• Ensure clean, maintainable and well-tested Python and Django code, and set the standard that the rest of the team works to.
• Own architectural decisions within the back-end codebase, including service boundaries, data models and API design, making sure they are documented, understood and applied consistently.
• Design and optimise PostgreSQL schemas and queries so that our applications stay fast and responsive on large data sets.
• Build and operate reliable asynchronous and scheduled workloads using Celery and Redis, with sensible retry, idempotency and monitoring.
• Support release readiness through debugging, testing, performance tuning, observability, documentation and issue resolution.
• Raise the quality bar in code reviews and help the team reach pragmatic technical decisions.
• Lead by example in estimation, planning, stand-ups, reviews and retrospectives.
• Take ownership of your own development and stay current with Python, Django and back-end engineering practice.

Commercial and stakeholder awareness

• Work closely with product, QA, front-end and client-facing colleagues to clarify requirements, manage dependencies and deliver agreed outcomes.
• Understand the commercial impact of delivery choices, balancing speed, quality, maintainability and client priorities.
• Provide realistic estimates and flag risks or blockers early, so that scope, cost and timelines can be managed effectively.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Substantial commercial experience building and shipping production back-end applications in Python, Django and Django REST Framework, including the ORM, migrations, authentication, serializers and testing.
• Strong PostgreSQL skills, including schema design, indexing and optimising queries over large data sets.
• Experience mentoring or technically leading engineers within a multi-disciplinary team, using agile delivery, CI/CD and automated testing.
• Excellent debugging, problem-solving and code review skills, and the ability to communicate technical choices, estimates, risks and trade-offs clearly.

Nice to have

• Experience with WebSockets or asynchronous Python (for example Django Channels or ASGI), or with another Python framework such as Flask or FastAPI.
• Experience building LLM-powered features, such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings or vector search.
• Experience with AWS, in particular S3, and with containerised deployment and monitoring of production issues.
• Experience with NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, and with integrations such as Microsoft Business Central and OneDrive.

Life at RWS

If you like the idea of working with smart people who are passionate about growing the value of ideas, data and content by making sure organizations are understood, then you’ll love life at RWS. This means our work fundamentally recognizes the value of every language and culture. So, we celebrate difference, we are inclusive and believe that diversity makes us strong. We want every employee to grow as an individual and excel in their career. In return, we expect all our people to live by the values that unite us: to partner, putting clients first and winning together, to pioneer, innovating fearlessly and leading with vision and courage, to progress, aiming high and growing through actions and to deliver, owning the outcome and building trust with our colleagues and clients.

All employment decisions at RWS are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation.