Practo - Senior Software Engineer - Backend Development

Role : Senior Software Engineer - BackendThe Mission : Scalability Meets Exploration : At Practo, we are solving healthcare accessibility for over a billion people. To do this, we run a massive, high-throughput ecosystem of microservices that handle millions of highly sensitive, real-time medical interactions daily.We are at an exciting inflection point. While we continue to design, build, and scale our core backend systems to support major new product features, we are also actively exploring how to leverage autonomous AI agents to transform our workflows.We aren't looking for pure AI researchers or prompt engineers. We need a Systems Thinkera Senior Backend Engineer who loves building greenfield features, designing clean microservice architectures, and handling high-scale distributed systems. Your job will be to ship new features and scale our core engines, while helping us experiment with and lay the resilient backend infrastructure needed for agentic workflows as they evolve.What Youll Actually Do (The Real Work) : - Build, Scale & Evolve Core Services : You will spend your time designing and implementing brand-new, high-impact backend features and greenfield microservices from scratch, while also driving the architectural evolution of our core systems. You'll work across a tactical mix of PHP, Python, and Java, prioritizing system design, high concurrency, thread safety, and API design.- Lay the Groundwork for Agentic Workflows : Help us explore and prototype the foundational backend layer for our upcoming AI initiatives. This means designing adaptable data schemas, building flexible orchestration pipelines, and helping us figure out how to cleanly integrate non-deterministic workflows into our stable, core production systems as our roadmap takes shape.- AI-Augmented Engineering : We don't want you wasting time writing boilerplate. We expect you to leverage LLM-assisted development tools (Cursor, Copilot, etc.) to accelerate syntax generation, allowing you to spend your cognitive energy on system design, architecture, edge cases, and scalability.- Technical Stewardship : Set the standard for clean code, robust system design, and security (especially crucial in healthcare). Mentor mid-level engineers through rigorous design reviews and pair programming.What We Are Looking For : THE MINDSET & EXPERIENCE : - Proven Track Record : You have spent 4 to 8 years building and operating production-grade backend systems.- Comfort with Ambiguity : You don't need a perfectly defined spec to start building. You are excited to collaborate, prototype, and run experiments.- High Ownership & Agency : You don't just write code; you take ownership of the systems you build. You care about how your code behaves in production and how it impacts our users.TECHNICAL SUPERPOWERS : - Systems Thinking & Architecture First : You design systems with failure in mind. You have a deep understanding of modularity, API contracts, and how to decouple complex, tightly integrated systems.- Language Agnostic : Language is not a barrier. While our core ecosystem is built on a mix of PHP, Python, and Java, we care about your core CS fundamentals, your understanding of memory management, concurrency models, and distributed systems. We expect you to use LLMs to bridge any syntax gaps and ship code faster.- Distributed Systems at Scale : You have designed and operated distributed, event-driven architectures. You have deep hands-on experience with messaging systems.- Data Tier Proficiency : Strong database design instincts (PostgreSQL, MySQL). You understand indexing, query execution plans, and how to design data models that scale.- Pragmatic Builder & Systems Evolution : You love building brand-new things, but you also respect the complexity of battle-tested, production code. You know how to design and integrate new features and modularize existing services without disrupting active user workflows.NICE-TO-HAVES : - Experience with containerization and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes).- Familiarity with cloud platforms (specifically AWS) and deploying scalable services in a cloud-native environment. (ref:hirist.tech)