About ShopGrok
ShopGrok is a profitable, fast-growing, bootstrapped SaaS company. We provide major retailers and global consumer brands with real-time competitive price intelligence and product insights.
We track millions of price points every week, processing massive datasets to power analytics dashboards that drive pricing decisions for Australia's largest companies. We run a lean, high-performing team of ~15 people. We prioritize automation over headcount and engineering excellence over bureaucracy.
About the Role
We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer who leans heavily into Backend Architecture, Infrastructure, and DevOps.
While every engineer at ShopGrok contributes to our core web crawling capabilities, this role is distinct. You will be the guardian of our cloud infrastructure and API layer. You will be responsible for maturing our DevOps practices, securing our perimeter, and ensuring our Python/Django APIs can scale to handle increasing traffic from our enterprise clients.
This is a high-impact role. You will work directly with the Founder and the Data Engineering team to support our migration to our next-generation platform ("Bedrock") and help us achieve ISO 27001 certification.
Key Responsibilities
1. Infrastructure, DevOps & Security (Primary Focus)
* Cloud Architecture (GCP): Manage and optimize our Google Cloud Platform environment (Compute Engine, GCS, Networking). You will architect perimeter networks and manage virtual machines to ensure security and performance.
* Linux Administration: Act as the primary administrator for our Linux environments. This includes patching cadence, OS hardening, and potentially leading the migration of our Tableau Server from Windows to Linux.
* API Scalability & Security: Architect and maintain robust REST APIs (Django Rest Framework) that serve our frontend applications and Tableau extensions. You will be responsible for preventing vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL injection), implementing rate limiting, and ensuring high availability.
* Security & Compliance: Play a key technical role in our journey to ISO 27001 certification. This involves implementing role-based access control (RBAC), managing secrets (handling .env files, API keys, JWT secrets), and automating security patch management.
* CI/CD & Deployment: Maintain and improve deployment pipelines (build, test, deploy) using tools like Git, Gunicorn, and Nginx.
2. Application Development & Data Collection
* Web Crawling: Like all our engineers, you will build and maintain high-quality web crawlers using Python and Scrapy. You will troubleshoot extraction logic and ensure data quality for downstream analytics.
* Backend Development: Maintain and extend the backend logic for internal tools and client-facing dashboards.
* Integration Support: Support backend services that power our custom analytic tools and any third party integrations.
About You
Technical Must-Haves:
* Python Expert: Strong commercial experience with Python backend development.
* Django / DRF: Experience building and maintaining APIs using Django Rest Framework.
* Linux Admin: Comfortable on the command line, managing permissions, cron jobs, and shell scripting.
* Cloud Operations (GCP/AWS): Experience provisioning and managing cloud resources (we use GCP, but AWS experience translates).
* DevOps Mindset: Experience with CI/CD, version control (Git), and web server configuration (Nginx/Gunicorn).
* Network Awareness: Understanding of VPCs, firewalls, load balancing, and secure networking principles.
Highly Desirable:
* Security Compliance: Experience working in an environment with ISO 27001, SOC 2, or similar security frameworks.
* Database Ops: Experience with Snowflake or managing PostgreSQL.
* Tableau Server: Experience administering Tableau Server (especially on Linux).
Cultural Fit:
* Pragmatic & Autonomous: We are bootstrapped. We don't have layers of middle management. You need to be a self-starter who enjoys solving problems without being hand-held.
* Scalability Focused: You write code today thinking about how it will run when traffic triples tomorrow.
* Clear Communicator: You can explain complex infrastructure trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
Why Join Us?
* Impact: You won't be a cog in a wheel. You will shape the infrastructure security and architecture of a platform used by the biggest names in Australian retail.
* Stability & Growth: We are profitable and growing sustainably. We offer a competitive salary and a stable environment without the "burn and churn" of venture-backed startups.
* Modern Stack: Work with Python 3, Django, Snowflake, React, and GCP.
* Hybrid Flexibility: We value deep work. We balance time in our Chippendale office with flexible work-from-home arrangements.