Team Lead - Python Infrastructure and Performance

Team Lead - Python Infrastructure and Performance

Your job

Our Python Infrastructure and Performance (PIP) team consists of 3 software engineers who play a crucial role in providing reliable Python infrastructure for other teams to build upon.
They work on improving the maintainability of the codebase and optimizing the performance, reliability and security properties of the code. For example, the team works on improving or replacing abstractions and libraries that don’t fit our needs anymore, improving the static typing of our Python code, improving the speed and reliability of our Python test suite, implementing security improvements, optimizing performance bottlenecks, etc.

The team collaborates closely with the product teams to determine requirements for infrastructure, and because reliability and security are shared responsibilities, they work hand in hand with the Infra and DevOps teams to maintain and improve our systems.
For larger initiatives that require cross-team collaboration, they coordinate with other Python teams to drive impactful improvements across the organization.

As the Team Lead, you'll strike a balance between leadership and hands-on development, spending approximately half your time managing the team and the other half writing code yourself.  You will be reporting directly to our CTO, Robert.

Your challenges

Team Lead tasks:

• Develop new processes for the team.

• Organize the work and manage priorities.

• Plan sprints for your team.

• Plan quarterly OKRs for the team.

• Conduct progress reviews for your team members.

• Mentor and support team members in their growth.

• Establish team culture and foster a collaborative environment.

Development tasks:

• Provide reliable Python infrastructure for other teams to build upon.

• Keep improving the maintainability of our Python codebase.

• Improve reliability of our Python code, by e.g. investigating outages and other reliability issues, and then suggesting and implementing solutions for them.

• Implement performance improvements for our Python code.

• Work on security improvements and provide security-focused reviews to other teams.

Building new features is not the primary focus of this team. However, there might be smaller Python-related projects that the team can pick up when they don’t fall into the domain of any of the product teams.

Who are you?

• You have previous experience leading an engineering team, or you are a senior engineer excited to start your career as a leader.

• You value high software engineering standards.

• You can give detailed code reviews both from a high-level and a low-level perspective.

• You have the technical depth to help your team members grow and can remove roadblocks for them. You have substantial backend development experience, and you are comfortable with Python, relational databases (ideally PostgreSQL), Linux and git.

• You can create incremental plans for structural codebase improvements, minimizing disruption.

• You have great communication skills.

• You are interested in setting an example for others.

• You are a people-oriented individual who helps others with an open and approachable attitude.

• You are pragmatic and empathic towards your team members and other stakeholders (i.e. colleagues from other departments etc).

• You like helping the team focus on the most important tasks, making sure its priorities and plans align with the rest of the company (we use the OKR framework for this).

• You have EU citizenship or a valid work permit for the Netherlands, you are preferably already living in The Netherlands.

• You are available for at least 32 hours per week.

Important note: we understand that studies show women may only apply for roles when they feel they meet 100% of the requirements, therefore, we strongly encourage you to apply even if you don't check every box, as we are looking for passionate individuals with potential and a willingness to grow.

Who are we?

Channable was founded in 2014 in the heart of Utrecht. We are now a strong team of +250 diverse individuals, and more than +40 nationalities.
Joining Channable means you’re looking for a bit more than just a job. Diverse as we are, we all share our love for growth, to help, to take ownership, and create an awesome journey together. Feel free to take a further look at who we are here and on our Instagram or Linkedin! Wanna get to know us even more? Give our Culture Playbook a read.

What do we do?

Channable is a fast-growing B2B SaaS platform that offers a fully integrated way to market your products online. We empower marketers and online businesses to manage, scale, and optimize their marketing.

Our engineering department values high engineering standards, choosing the right tool for the job, and working collaboratively. We are a collection of very different people with a shared love of doing things the right way.

Do you want to read more about our engineering culture? Then have a look at our popular tech blog: https://tech.channable.com

Additionally, you can also take a look at some of our open-source work at https://github.com/channable to get a feeling of how we work together and what our code looks like.

What do we offer? 

• Gross monthly salary ranging from € 4.761- € 8.912 based on a 40-hour work week. The salary is determined based on your experience.

• 8% holiday allowance - 8% of your yearly salary, which is paid together with your May salary.

• Stock Appreciation Rights: employees can financially profit from Channable’s success.

• Annual L&D budget of €1000 to spend on anything you want to learn. You can take full advantage of this to grow professionally.

• Saving for old age - we have a savings scheme for old ag,e which can accrue up to 5% of your monthly salary.

• Company-wide performance bonus, up to 10% of your annual salary, determined yearly by our founders based on financial planning and targets

• Traveling to our office? No problem, we got you covered (NS Business Card, or €0,23 per km if you decide to use a different means of transport).

• To work in a beautiful historic and fully renovated office in the heart of Utrecht & with a flexible hybrid working policy of (minimum 2 days in the office).

• Since you can work from home for 3 days a week, we will provide home office supplies.

• Having flexible working hours means starting your day between 8.00–10.00 am.

• 26 vacation days + 2 reload days based on 40 hours.

• We offer a 3-week-long workcation; and an additional 3 weeks, if you live as an expat in the Netherlands!

• Are you going to become a parent? We think it is important that you spend time with your newborn. Enjoy 5 weeks of 100% paid partner leave.

• We want you to feel good - please feel free to use our discounted Urban Sport Club subscription.

• You have free & anonymous access to the OpenUp platform, and psychologists. This free service is also available to your family members.

• Channaweekend (we will go abroad in 2025 for a long weekend with all the colleagues from all over the world).

• At Channable, our Chef and Commis Chef prepare fresh meals Monday to Thursday, catering to all dietary needs - including vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free - to keep our team fueled and inspired!

• Additional working conditions like massages, in-office bar (Channabar), parties, sports teams (even personal training sessions at our Channagym), video games, and many more!

How can you apply?

Are you interested? Please apply by clicking on the "apply now" button below. Please send your application in English. If it's a match, Ioana  (Tech Talent Acquisition Partner) will get in touch with you for an introduction call. After that, you'll be invited for interviews. We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible!

Contact by job agencies and recruiters will not be appreciated. Each recruiter or headhunter who approaches us agrees with a donation of €250 for Make-A-Wish.

At Channable, we strive to create and foster an environment of belonging and collaboration and we believe in diverse and inclusive teams.