Intermediate Python Backend Engineer

About the role

MDPI is seeking an Intermediate Backend Engineer to develop and maintain backend features for the MDPI Pulse scholar newsletter and related email‑marketing campaigns. You will work primarily with Python to build APIs, email‑rendering components, and ensure the reliability of the services through testing and CI/CD.

Key responsibilities

• Own end‑to‑end development of backend features, services and email‑rendering components for Pulse and marketing campaigns.
• Design and implement versioned API contracts and document technical decisions.
• Optimize database queries and indexing to improve performance.
• Write integration tests, maintain test coverage, and perform code reviews.
• Maintain CI/CD pipeline configurations and apply observability practices.
• Collaborate with data engineers, product, QA, UX, DevOps and the Belgrade email‑marketing operations team.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field.
• 2–5 years of experience in backend/server‑side development using Python.
• Experience with REST API development, relational databases, SQL and ORM frameworks.
• Familiarity with email templating and HTML email rendering.
• Strong knowledge of automated testing, Git and CI/CD practices.
• Excellent written and spoken English and a collaborative mindset.

Required skills

• Python
• REST API development
• SQL and relational databases
• ORM frameworks and migrations
• Query optimization
• Email templating and HTML email rendering
• Automated testing (unit and integration)
• Git
• CI/CD pipelines
• Service monitoring and observability