Senior Backend Engineer

Company Description

Unicorn is the leading global platform for spirits and wine, offering a seamless auction \& marketplace for buying, selling, vaulting, and managing collections. Trusted by 100,000\+ collectors worldwide, we connect enthusiasts with everyday favorites and rare bottles—selling over $200M\+ of bottles globally. Check us out at unicornauctions.com

This is a place where engineers get exposed to a wide range of work. You will not be isolated on a single backend service with little connection to the rest of the company. Our team works across product and operations, which means engineers have the chance to contribute to customer facing experiences, internal tools, platform improvements, and the systems that help the company scale. That breadth creates real opportunity for impact. The work you do here will directly improve how customers engage with the business, how efficiently teams operate, and how effectively the company can reach its goals.

Role Description

We are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer for a full-time,

on-site role in Chicago, IL. You will

help build and scale the systems that support both our customer experience and the operational backbone of the business. This is a backend-focused role, but we are looking for someone who enjoys working across the stack when needed and is excited to collaborate closely with product, frontend, operations, and other teams. In practice, that means you may be building APIs and backend services one week, improving workflows for internal users the next, and helping shape end to end solutions that connect multiple parts of the business.

You will work on a mix of improving existing systems and building new capabilities that increase scalability, reliability, security, and operational efficiency. As a senior engineer, you will be a foundational voice in team meetings, contribute to technical direction, and raise the overall quality of how we build.

Qualifications

• Design, develop, and maintain robust APIs and backend services using Python, Django, and Django Rest Framework (DRF)
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams (frontend, product, operations) to build internal tools for order management, inventory tracking, payments \& warehouse logistics
• Develop scalable systems and services on AWS (e.g., ECS, S3, RDS, Lambda) to support both consumer-facing and internal applications
• Work with PostgreSQL and other databases to optimize queries, manage schema changes, and ensure data consistency and performance
• Lead technical design efforts, including code reviews, architectural planning, and system architecture sessions
• Implement testing, monitoring, and alerting to ensure high reliability and uptime
• Stay current with industry trends, evaluating new tools and frameworks that could improve the team’s productivity and code quality
• Identify opportunities to improve infrastructure, tooling, security, and engineering practices
• Mentor other engineers and help raise the technical bar across the team

Key Requirements

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 5\+ years of professional backend development experience with strong proficiency in Python
• Deep experience with Django and DRF, including building RESTful APIs
• Solid understanding of relational databases, with experience in PostgreSQL (schema design, indexing, query optimization)
• Experience with AWS cloud services (ECS, EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, CloudWatch)
• Strong understanding of software architecture, scalability, and distributed systems
• Comfort working across systems and collaborating on full stack solutions when needed
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker), and modern deployment practices
• Familiarity with unit testing, integration testing, and performance tuning
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work closely with cross functional team
• Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and a passion for building high-quality software.

Bonus points if you have

• Experience with asynchronous task queues such as Celery and Redis
• Familiarity with GraphQL or gRPC
• Experience building high volume, high availability, real time systems
• Exposure to mobile app backend design for iOS or Android
• Experience building internal operational tools as well as customer facing products
• Comfort contributing to frontend or full stack work when needed