Software Engineer (Python)

What you’ll get

At Perlego we believe in the key role you will play to achieve our shared mission. You'll belong to a culture of dreamers, team players and avid learners with a flexible, value-based approach. Here, you can become your best self, and through your talent, make a real impact in the world of education.

What we do

At Perlego, there are almost 100 of us working hard to make education accessible to all. We believe access to good quality affordable learning unlocks potential. Knowledge should be more accessible, not locked behind sky-high price tags.

We recently expanded our library to make over 1 million books affordable for learners, earned a 100% Gold ASPIRE rating for accessibility and reached over 15 million people. The next stage of Perlego is twofold: 1) expand our support to students and publishers globally, and 2) build a product that goes beyond the book, a platform that helps students study smarter and educators teach more effectively.

What we’re looking for

A Software Engineer with experience in Python, AWS and a modern Framework like Flask, Node.js, FastAPI, or similar. You'll be joining our Publisher Tribe, focussed on developing and maintaining scalable, automated systems for onboarding and managing all publisher content on the Perlego platform.

How we work together

We organise ourselves into cross-functional squads, with each squad working together on a common data-driven goal. This role will be a part of our Content Operations squad, consisting of an Engineering Manger, Software Engineers, a QA Engineer & a Product Manager, whose mission is to empower the rest of the business to manage, discover, and leverage content on the Perlego platform.

What you’ll do

You will work in a self-organising team in our product ecosystem providing technical development skills (Python/AWS) within the squad, co-solutioning and getting hands-on implementing the solutions to help your squad achieve its goal.

You will contribute to the design of distributed AWS cloud systems, including Serverless Python and Node.js application back-ends. With your squad you'll bring these solutions to life, writing high-quality code utilising test-driven development (Pytest/Jest), continuous integration (AWS) and code review (GitHub).

You will help build and maintain processing pipelines in Python to ingest and manage publisher book files and publisher metadata in order to make the content available to our users quickly and reliably. As part of this role, you’ll be developing and maintaining both serverless processing pipelines in Python and backend microservices in Python and Node.js, as well as building extensive technical knowledge in the publishing domain, including how to deal with ePUBs and PDFs. This will require a good understanding of Python, Bash, Node.js and several AWS services (such as Lambda, S3, Step Functions, Fargate).

You and your cross-functional squad will look after application features from inception to production working with customers and business stakeholders to bring them to life and support them in production.

Requirements

It’s the perfect role for you if you have:

• Experience in implementing back-end systems in Python using a modern framework such as Flask, Django, or FastAPI
• Experience working with Cloud computing providers (such as AWS) and strong Linux familiarity
• Experience working with Relational Database Design and NoSQL Databases
• An understanding of architectural practices including: Microservices, RESTful APIs, object-oriented & functional programming
• Experience working in an Agile environment with Test Driven Development and CI/CD
• Several years of commercial experience as a software engineer
• Experience working with non-technical stakeholders and the ability to boil down complex technical problems and make them easy to understand

⭐️ It’s a plus if you have:

• Experience with Javascript/Typescript or Node.js
• Experience with Microservices and Serverless Architectures
• Experience in a startup environment
• Have a general interest in books, reading and always learning new things!

Benefits

🌈 Benefits include:

✨Compensation

The salary range for this role is £58,000 - £65,000 + share options

Why should you work at Perlego?

Apart from our mission, we foster a unique company culture championing self-empowerment, personal development, direct communication and mutual support.

Want to learn more about how we’re making learning accessible? Check out our latest impact report

🏠 Flexible

We operate a flexible hybrid working environment. If you’re based in London, we’d expect to see you in the office twice a week, if you’re in the UK but outside of London we’d expect to see you at least 6 times a quarter (hopefully at our quarterly socials 💃). If you’re looking for a 100% remote role, this one is not for you.

At Perlego, we empower you to work in a way that supports your needs and your life. We trust people to know what works best for them. Check out our Flexa profile to find out more.

🧠 L&D Budget

We value continuous learning and you will have a personal L&D budget for online courses, subscriptions or books not on Perlego.

🌱 Unlimited Coaching Opportunities

Unlimited access to MoreHappi, an on-demand professional coaching platform to offer all employees access to unbiased and professional coaching opportunities.

🤓 Learning Time

All employees have dedicated Learning Time to focus on new skills, projects or interests that lay outside of their day-to-day job, including Hackathons which bring our entire Engineering team together to work on exciting projects.

🌴 Work-Life Balance

Everyone needs a break, so enjoy 30 days off (incl. bank holidays) + 1 additional day annual leave for every year of service up to 35 days off (incl. bank holidays)

🛐 Flexi Bank Holidays

We understand that not everyone aligns with the same calendar; we offer the flexibility to take your local country's bank holiday allowance for other religious or cultural days.

e.g. switch UK Easter Bank Holidays Days for Eid celebrations

❄️ Office Reset

All employees can also enjoy the days between Boxing Day and New Year off, to reset and refresh for the new year - this is additional to your annual leave 🙂

🏖 Sabbatical

After three years there is an opportunity to take a 1-month unpaid sabbatical, and after five years there is an opportunity to take a 1-month paid sabbatical

💛 Personal Days

Life happens and we want you to be able to use your annual leave for resting, relaxing or taking time out to do something you love!

We offer 1 additional day a year for life events (your wedding, relocation, moving house, or a child starting school).

🍏 Health & Wellbeing

We want everyone to feel healthy and happy, so we offer private medical insurance via Vitality.

💭 Mental Health

All employees get access to therapy and counselling through Vitality

🚲 Cycle to Work Scheme

We're committed to building a sustainable business, so we encourage cycling to work. Perlego will buy your bike of choice, which you'll pay back over 12 months.

🎉 Social

We're a tight-knit bunch who enjoy our time to play. We have regular social events and activities for everyone - everything from white water rafting to board game nights.

🍼 Family time

We believe family is really important; we offer new parents a competitive matched parental leave as well as a phased return to work from extended leave.

👼 Workplace Nursery Benefit

We want to support working parents and carers, so we offer a workplace nursery benefit scheme, helping our employees potentially save thousands of £££ against the cost of nurseries each year.

👋 Belonging at Perlego

🌈 We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity of thought and background.

❤️ We are actively building a diverse team, so we strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

📣 To enable an equitable experience for all and give you the best chance of success, if you have any specific requirements for any stage of the interview process, please let us know by emailing [email protected]