Backend Software Engineer - Python & Data Systems

Permutable builds predictive market intelligence for institutional investors and trading teams across macroeconomics, commodities, currencies and geopolitics. Our systems turn global reporting into structured, traceable signals that help users understand changing market conditions and assess what markets may price next. Behind that intelligence are the engineering challenges of processing information at scale, maintaining reliable data pipelines and delivering results through dependable services and APIs. Our work has earned two innovation awards in 2026: AI Innovation of the Year: Europe at the Euromoney Markets Awards, and Technology Provider of the Year: Innovation at the Hedgeweek European Awards. We’re looking for a Backend Software Engineer to help develop the platform behind this work, with ownership of production systems and support from experienced engineers. The role You’ll work closely with our founder, engineers and data scientists in a small London team. Your work will span backend services, data pipelines and cloud infrastructure, giving you the opportunity to understand how the platform fits together and influence how it develops. We’re looking for someone who enjoys writing clear, maintainable Python, investigating problems and seeing their work through to production. You’ll have room to make decisions, ask questions and build your technical judgement as your responsibilities grow. What you’ll do - Build backend services and APIs that deliver market intelligence to our products and institutional users. - Develop reliable data pipelines for ingesting, processing and serving financial information, with appropriate validation, retries and error handling. - Improve performance and reliability by investigating bottlenecks, monitoring system behaviour and resolving production issues. - Work with AWS infrastructure, using services such as Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3 and Redshift where appropriate. - Automate testing and deployment through Docker, GitHub Actions and infrastructure as code with Pulumi. - Contribute to technical decisions, working with the team to review designs, improve code and plan development. - Own work through to release, including testing, documentation and monitoring after deployment. What you’ll bring - Upwards from a minimum of 2 years of professional software engineering experience, or equivalent evidence of building and maintaining substantial software systems. - Strong Python skills and a sound understanding of software design, data structures and debugging. - Experience developing backend services, APIs or data pipelines used in production. - Familiarity with automated testing, Git, CI/CD and containerisation. - An understanding of how to make software reliable, observable and maintainable. - A proactive approach: you can investigate a problem independently, communicate progress and ask for help when needed. - Curiosity about data, AI applications and how global events affect financial markets. Experience with AWS, distributed systems, infrastructure as code or AI/LLM applications would be useful. You don’t need experience with every tool in our stack. A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or a related subject is welcome, but we’re equally interested in candidates who have developed their skills through other routes. Why join Permutable? - Build systems people use. Your work will support institutional research and market workflows, with opportunities to understand how users depend on it. - Take meaningful ownership. Work on core platform capabilities and follow your contributions from design through to production. - Develop your engineering skills. Learn from experienced colleagues through code reviews, technical discussions and hands-on work across backend development, data infrastructure and AI applications. - Help shape a growing platform. Contribute ideas and influence technical choices as our products and team develop. - Join a close-knit team. We have a warm, supportive start-up culture, with team socials, offsites, sports events and office treats. - Share in our growth. Benefits include equity options, a holiday allowance and your birthday off. We work together in our Vauxhall office at least three days a week, with flexibility to work remotely for the remainder.