Senior Python Engineer (Contract)

Introduction We’re looking for a strong Senior Python Engineer to join a growing engineering team building modern, cloud-native platforms and AI-driven services at enterprise scale. This is a hands-on contract role for someone who sees themselves as a software engineer first — someone who builds maintainable, production-grade systems rather than temporary scripts or prototypes.

You’ll work across development, data, and AI-focused teams, helping bring engineering discipline, scalability, and reliability to Python services that support real-world operational platforms. If you enjoy solving complex technical problems, improving systems over time, and working across multiple engineering domains, this role offers a genuinely interesting challenge.

 

About the Organisation

This global SaaS organisation develops intelligent, data-driven platforms that help enterprises make operational decisions more effectively through the use of AI, analytics, and automation.

Operating across industries including financial services, healthcare, and business process operations, the company combines modern cloud-native engineering with advanced data and AI capabilities to deliver enterprise-scale solutions used internationally.

As part of its continued growth, the organisation is expanding its South African engineering capability — creating opportunities to work on meaningful technical challenges within a collaborative global environment.

Who Are You?

You’re first and foremost a software engineer — not someone who only builds notebooks or one-off scripts, but someone who designs and ships properly structured, maintainable systems.

You bring 5+ years of production Python experience and understand the difference between code that merely works and code that survives production environments over time. You care about engineering quality, modern tooling, testing, packaging, maintainability, and writing software that other people can confidently build on.

Python is your primary language, and you have strong opinions about writing it well — while still remaining pragmatic enough to balance quality with delivery momentum.

You’re comfortable collaborating across disciplines:

helping data science teams productionise prototypes supporting engineering teams with Python best practices contributing to architectural discussions improving tooling, CI/CD, and developer workflows

You’re based in or around Johannesburg and open to working from a Rosebank office, joining a growing engineering team where you’ll help shape the technical culture and standards.

The Role

This is a cross-functional engineering role working across software development, data engineering, and AI-focused teams.

Your primary focus will be designing, maintaining, and improving production Python services that support AI-driven platforms, automation workflows, APIs, and cloud-native applications.

You’ll work extensively with modern Python frameworks and cloud services, helping evolve microservices, APIs, serverless components, and data-related services into scalable, maintainable production systems.

A key part of the role involves bringing engineering rigour to environments that often begin as research or prototype-heavy spaces — improving structure, testing, deployment practices, observability, and long-term maintainability.

Technical debt reduction will also form an important part of the role. You’ll proactively improve tooling, dependency management, testing standards, packaging, and development workflows to help maintain a healthy engineering ecosystem.

You’ll be expected to take ownership of delivery from problem definition through to production deployment, collaborating closely with developers, data engineers, infrastructure teams, and AI-focused specialists.

Duties & Responsibilities Production Python Engineering

Design, maintain, and improve production-grade Python services and APIs Productionise research prototypes and experimental solutions Improve software quality, testing, packaging, maintainability, and tooling Reduce technical debt across Python services and workflows Contribute to architectural decisions around deployment, frameworks, and scalability

Collaboration & Delivery

Work across software engineering, data engineering, and AI-focused teams Collaborate with infrastructure and database teams on optimisation and reliability Improve CI/CD pipelines, automation, and developer tooling Communicate technical risks, impacts, and delivery progress clearly

Knowledge Sharing

Promote Python engineering best practices across the organisation Support and mentor less experienced engineers through reviews and collaboration Help establish consistent standards and development patterns across teams

Desired Experience & Qualification Essential

5+ years building production-grade Python applications Strong software engineering fundamentals (testing, architecture, clean code, CI/CD, version control) Deep understanding of modern Python tooling and ecosystem Experience working with cloud-native platforms (Azure preferred) Experience collaborating with data science or analytics teams Strong debugging, investigation, and performance optimisation skills Ability to independently scope and deliver technical solutions Strong communication and decision-making skills

Desirable

Experience with Databricks, Spark, or large-scale data platforms Experience with FastAPI or async Python frameworks Exposure to AI/agent frameworks and modern AI integration patterns Docker and containerisation experience Familiarity with modern Python tooling (ruff, pyright, uv, etc.) Experience with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation Exposure to Rust or multi-language engineering environments Strong understanding of software architecture and design patterns

Package & Remuneration Real Impact

Work on production AI and automation platforms used by enterprise organisations where engineering quality matters.

Engineering Culture

A collaborative engineering environment focused on clean code, maintainability, and pragmatic technical excellence.

Growth Opportunity

Exposure to AI-driven systems, cloud-native architecture, Databricks, modern Python ecosystems, and multi-language platforms.

Team Environment

Be part of a growing Johannesburg-based engineering capability within a global technology organisation.

Workspace

A Rosebank-based office backed by an established international business while still offering the energy of a growing local team.

Interested? Should you be interested in this role?

Please follow these steps.

Please, send an email to brennanb@aperture-group.net CC info@aperture-group.net.

In this email, please share the following information:

Your current CTC remuneration, Contracting hourly rate or Monthly CTC. Please share your location of residence. Please include a brief cover letter explaining why you are best suited for this role. Your latest Resume/CV A personal photo of yourself Your contactable whatsapp mobile number Your linked in URL.