Freelance - Senior Backend Architect

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Backend Architect (812 years) to work on a part-time, on-site basis with our engineering team in the medical technology domain .

This role is ideal for a seasoned engineer or architect who wants to contribute strategically to backend design and scalability while mentoring a growing team.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Django , System Design , Microservices , AWS , Docker/Kubernetes , and optionally Kafka/ETL , along with strong knowledge of health-tech compliance frameworks such as HIPAA and ISO 27001 .

You will play a key role in shaping our backend architecture, ensuring scalability, reliability, and compliance for our medical monitoring and data processing platforms .

Responsibilities

• Backend Architecture: Design, review, and evolve the backend architecture using Django (Class-Based Views, models, services); apply SOLID principles and design patterns to ensure long-term maintainability and scalability.
• System Design & Planning: Drive architectural discussions, evaluate trade-offs, and propose scalable, fault-tolerant designs for backend systems.
• API Development: Oversee and guide the development of REST APIs with robust authentication, versioning, and rate limiting.
• Security & Compliance: Implement and audit secure authentication (JWT, OAuth2), access control, and ensure compliance with HIPAA and ISO 27001 standards.
• Database Strategy: Design optimized schemas using Django ORM ; ensure data integrity , manage migrations, and oversee query tuning and indexing strategies.
• Business Logic: Architect and modularize core backend logic such as patient monitoring workflows , health data analysis , device data pipelines , and alerting systems into reusable service components.
• Testing & CI/CD: Define and enforce testing standards (Pytest, Django TestCase); ensure CI/CD pipelines enable smooth, validated deployments.
• DevOps & Cloud: Advise and collaborate on deployment pipelines using Docker , GitHub Actions/Jenkins , and AWS/GCP infrastructure.
• Performance & Scalability: Identify bottlenecks, drive caching and load balancing strategies, and ensure fault tolerance under scale.
• Microservices: Architect, integrate, and maintain microservice-based components for distributed and modular system design.
• Technical Leadership: Review pull requests, provide architectural guidance, mentor junior developers, and contribute actively to technical planning and long-term product scalability .

Required Skills & Experience

• 812 years of backend or full-stack development experience.
• Strong expertise in Python (Django / DRF) and System Architecture Design .
• Proven experience with Microservices and Scalable Distributed Systems .
• Hands-on experience with AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, CloudWatch).
• Proficiency in Docker , Kubernetes , and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions / Jenkins).
• Familiarity with Kafka , ETL pipelines , or event-driven architectures.
• Understanding of HIPAA , ISO 27001 , and healthcare data compliance principles.
• Excellent leadership, documentation, and communication skills.

Preferred (Nice to Have)

• Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or Loki for observability.
• Exposure to IoT-based healthcare devices or real-time medical data systems .

Prior experience in startups or health-tech platforms dealing with large-scale medical data.