Freelance Python Api Developer Jobs in Chicago, IL

Job Summary:
HUB International is a global insurance and employee benefits broker, seeking a Software Architect to join their Application Development team. This role is focused on building custom backend solutions and integrations, providing technical direction, and architecting scalable cloud-native Python-based services while collaborating with business stakeholders.
Responsibilities:
• This is a hands-on architect position — candidates are expected to produce high quality, maintainable, and scalable Python-based software.
• Own the end-to-end process of translating business needs into technical architecture — from facilitating discovery sessions with non-technical stakeholders through to implementation and delivery.
• Partner directly with business owners, product managers, and domain experts to surface requirements, challenge assumptions, and define solutions that are both technically sound and business-relevant.
• Lead architecture, design, development, and implementation of cloud-native backend services, microservices, and APIs — with a strong bias toward leveraging managed cloud services over reinventing the wheel.
• Design systems that are built for the cloud from day one — emphasizing scalability, resilience, observability, and cost efficiency on Azure and/or AWS.
• Be an active champion for adopting agentic workflow patterns, helping the team understand, evaluate, and implement AI-driven automation pipelines and agent orchestration frameworks.
• Clearly articulate technical constraints and tradeoffs to non-technical business stakeholders — and push back constructively when requirements conflict with architectural integrity.
• Decompose technical architecture into distinct tasks that can be executed by other developers.
• Maintain coding standards and lead peer code reviews with a focus on Python best practices.
• Ensure architectural principles and coding standards are upheld across the full project lifecycle.
• Stay current on cloud-native innovations, backend patterns, and AI/agentic tooling that can enhance Hub's technical capabilities.
Qualifications:
Required:
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• Minimum 8+ years of software development experience with Python as the primary language.
• Minimum 2+ years in a similar architect, tech lead, or equivalent role.
• Mandatory hands-on cloud experience in Azure and/or AWS — production-grade cloud-native architecture is a hard requirement. Experience deploying apps to the cloud is not sufficient; we need architects who design for the cloud.
• Demonstrated track record of engaging directly with business stakeholders to drive and refine technical requirements — not just receiving them from a product owner.
• Strong understanding of Python ecosystem tools: FastAPI or Django, SQLAlchemy, Pydantic, Celery, pytest.
• Demonstrated experience designing and building scalable backend APIs and microservices.
• Experience leading or working in Agile/Scrum teams.
• Genuine interest and enthusiasm for agentic AI workflows and AI-assisted development — you don't need to have shipped a production agent, but you need to be leaning in and actively learning.
• Familiarity with design patterns, SOLID principles, decoupled architecture, and REST API best practices.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills — particularly with non-technical audiences.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects with competing priorities.
• Capable of taking a project from inception to delivery.
Preferred:
• Polyglot development background — .NET (C#) or Java experience is a meaningful plus; architects who can read and reason across language boundaries strengthen the whole team
• Experience with both Azure and AWS (multi-cloud exposure)
• Familiarity with LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, or similar agent orchestration frameworks
• Experience with Kafka or event streaming architectures
• Prior work integrating OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Bedrock, or similar LLM services into production systems
• Exposure to Mulesoft or similar integration platforms
• Experience with Jira, Confluence, BitBucket
• Prior experience leading distributed software teams using Scrum
Company:
HUB International is an insurance brokerage company that offers employee benefits, business, and personal insurance products and services. Founded in 1998, the company is headquartered in Chicago, USA, with a team of 10001+ employees. The company is currently Late Stage.