Senior Python Backend Engineer Mission Critical

About Us

We are a 26-year established Destination Management Company (DMC) operating under the Amstar DMC brand, the official destination services and tour operator brand of Hyatt Corporation.

We support major North American travel brands including:

• Apple Vacations

• American Express Vacations

• CheapCaribbean

• Expedia

• Hyatt

• And more than 12 additional travel brands

Our platform supports daily operational workflows for:

• Transfer bookings (airport ↔ hotel)

• Tours and excursions

• Vacation-related services

• Automated dispatch and resource allocation

• Supplier coordination

• Operational handling

• Financials (invoicing, payments, credit card payments etc)

The system automatically assigns drivers, vehicles, and partner companies required for service delivery.

This is a real-time operational system used daily in production.

Current System (Legacy Overview)

We operate a 24-year-old Perl-based monolithic application.

Codebase

• ~250,000 lines total

• ~100K core Perl code

• 63K template toolkit

• 43K configuration system

• 17K Perl scripts

• 25K web framework

• Single monolithic architecture

• Single MySQL database

• 178 tables

• 10 background jobs

• ORM used since inception (limited direct SQL usage)

Integrations

• Google Drive

• Gmail

• FlightStats

• WhatsApp

• Stripe (payments)

Additional workflows:

• Email parsers reading Excel attachments

• CSV generation & ingestion via Google Drive

• Google Forms integrations

• Blocking page flows in current UI

Infrastructure

• Hosted on DigitalOcean VPS

• Ubuntu 22.10 (scheduled for upgrade)

• Dev / Stage / Production environments

• Python services are Dockerized

• Perl system is not containerized

• Partial CI/CD automation (Python only)

• Infrastructure managed by current Senior Developer

• Automated database backups + monthly restore testing

• No replication currently

• Downtime tolerance: up to 8 hours (business continuity procedures exist)

Migration Status & Goal

We are executing a phased migration from Perl to Python.

• ~20% already migrated

• Target: >80% migrated within 12 months

• End goal: full replacement of legacy Perl system

Current modernization streams:

• Migrate email & WhatsApp handling to AI-driven solution

• Rebuild core order management functionality in Python (FastAPI)

• Develop new UI for drivers and hostesses

• Gradually decouple monolith into modular services

This is a controlled, staged production migration.

Team Structure

• 1 senior developer (20 years on system)

• 1 QA

• No dedicated DevOps

•

Requirements defined by business + management + senior dev

• Production incidents handled by senior dev

• Very stable production system (minimal incidents in last 12 months)

This role will significantly strengthen and eventually take ownership of the modernization effort.

Required Technical Skills (Must Have)

• Strong Python experience

• Proven production experience with FastAPI

• Strong MySQL knowledge (schema, indexing, query optimization)

• Comfortable in Linux (Ubuntu) CLI

• Experience with pytest

• GitHub + GitHub Actions CI/CD

• Experience deploying behind Nginx or Apache

• Docker experience

• Professional use of VS Code or similar

• Understanding of API design and system decoupling

Secondary (Nice to Have)

• Ability to read Perl code

• Experience modernizing monolithic systems

• Experience with Google APIs 

• Experience with Stripe or payment systems

• Basic React experience (for internal admin tools)

React is not a primary frontend role requirement.

Work Environment

• Fully remote

• Daily scrum (max 30 minutes)

• Structured weekly planning

• Flexible working hours

• 24/7 operational business context

• This is not a constant on-call role, but production responsibility is real.
• Emergency incidents are rare but must be handled professionally.

We value:

• Transparency

• Ownership

• Integrity

• Clear documentation

• Structured decision-making

What You Will Own

• Build production-ready FastAPI services

• Define migration architecture

• Improve CI/CD maturity

• Strengthen infrastructure reliability

• Design rollback-safe deployments

• Document architectural decisions

• Gradually replace the legacy monolith

This is a high-autonomy, high-responsibility role.

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