Volunteer Python Django Backend Developer Jobs in Chicago, IL

PLEASE NOTE: At this time, we are only considering candidates located in and authorized to work in the United States.

Bitovi is looking for a Backend / Platform Developer Consultant to join us as we transform technology delivery. We build and operate durable, distributed systems for enterprise clients — heavy on Java Services, Temporal for workflow orchestration, Kafka for event streaming, and Kubernetes-native platform engineering on AWS to run it all reliably. If you want to build exceptional systems, take orchestration, systems engineering, and infrastructure seriously, and have ideas on how to make delivery more collaborative, validation-driven, and swift, we want to work with you!

You're experienced building and running applications at the enterprise level, and you're comfortable owning both the code and the infrastructure it runs on. You think like a systems engineer — reasoning about the whole platform, from JVM services and event streams to the clusters and cloud infrastructure underneath them. You thrive when given opportunities to deliver real-world platforms as an integral team member, including large-scale migrations, and you have the expertise to interface and communicate confidently with stakeholders.

You'll excel in this role at Bitovi if you have:

• Strong working knowledge of Java and the JVM ecosystem (Spring Boot or similar); experience with additional backend languages (Go, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, C#, etc.) is a plus

• Hands-on experience with a durable execution / workflow engine — Temporal preferred (Apache Airflow, Prefect, or similar also relevant) — including modeling workflows and activities, handling retries and timeouts, and reasoning about idempotency and failure modes

• Experience designing and operating Kafka-based event streaming systems: topic and partition design, consumer groups, schema management, and reasoning about ordering, delivery guarantees, and consumer lag

• Experience designing and building GraphQL APIs — schema design, resolvers, and performance concerns (N+1, caching, pagination); federation experience a plus

• Deep, hands-on AWS experience: architecting, deploying, and operating production systems (EKS, networking, IAM, messaging, and data services)

• Solid Kubernetes experience: deploying, operating, and debugging production workloads

• A systems engineering mindset: understanding of complex scaling issues, concurrency, backpressure, caching strategies, and failure modes across distributed systems

• Experience planning and executing migrations — application replatforming, workflow engine migrations, data/schema migrations, or moving workloads between environments with minimal downtime

• A thorough understanding of CI/CD pipelines and GitOps-style delivery

• Experience with observability in practice — logging, metrics, and tracing (OpenTelemetry a plus)

• Experience building modern microservice-based or serverless applications

• Database schema design and development expertise

• Running Temporal in production — self-hosted on Kubernetes and/or Temporal Cloud

• Workflow versioning and patching, safe deployments, and long-running workflow migrations

• Worker deployment and tuning (pollers, task queues, concurrency/slot configuration)

• Namespace management, mTLS (SPIFFE/SPIRE or private CA), and capacity/scaling concerns (e.g. APS/TRU on Temporal Cloud

• Operating Kafka in production (MSK, Confluent, or self-managed on Kubernetes)

• Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, and schema registry workflows (Avro/Protobuf)

• Migrating between clusters or providers, and integrating Kafka with downstream analytical stores

• Experience with different techniques for processing large datasets, such as Lambda and Kappa architectures

• Building or operating an internal developer platform (IDP) — self-service, paved-path infrastructure for application teams

• GitOps with ArgoCD (or Flux) and a low- or zero-manual-apply delivery model

• Infrastructure as code: Terraform/OpenTofu, and provisioning AWS resources via Crossplane, ACK, or similar

• Writing Kubernetes controllers/operators (controller-runtime, kubebuilder) and working with CRDs

• Helm chart authoring and distribution (including OCI/registry-based)

• Secrets management (External Secrets Operator, etc.), autoscaling (Karpenter, KEDA), and service mesh concepts (Istio, SPIFFE/SPIRE)

• EKS or comparable managed Kubernetes at scale

• Interest in working across multiple backend languages

• Additional queueing and messaging technologies (AWS SQS/SNS, RabbitMQ)

• API design across paradigms (GraphQL, REST, gRPC)

• AuthN/AuthZ and related technologies (sessions, API tokens, JWTs)

• Automated testing across the stack (unit, integration, performance/benchmarking)

Bitovi partners with companies to build outcome-focused apps and platforms. Our collaborative approach is driven by validation to deliver the swiftest route to the most valuable solution.

We design and build high-profile applications and the infrastructure behind them — with tests, full docs, and a real deployment process. We run a serious Temporal practice (including large-scale migration and security work for enterprise clients) alongside deep Kubernetes, AWS, and platform engineering work. We discuss and design architectures, review code, and research new technologies. We talk to our clients, guiding them through the process, identifying potential problems and unknowns, and tackling challenges.

We help one another freely. We keep a Slack channel called ask-help, which is constantly used. We develop new skills, build better developer tools, and work on new types of projects regularly.

Our fully remote team comprises about 70 developers and designers. We welcome diversity and non-traditional paths into professions — we want the right person, not the right collection of tech keywords.

Build durable systems. Design and implement Java services, Temporal workflows, and Kafka-based event pipelines, and help clients adopt durable execution and event streaming the right way — from first workflow to production scale.

Lead modernization efforts. Plan and execute large-scale modernization efforts — moving workflows, services, and data between platforms, clusters, and clouds — with safety, observability, and minimal disruption as first-class requirements.

Own the platform. Build and operate Kubernetes-native infrastructure and CI/CD on AWS so application teams can ship safely and quickly. Treat reliability, observability, and repeatability as part of the deliverable, not an afterthought.

Consult and manage. Consult with clients to build outcome-driven applications and platforms, guiding them through the process, identifying potential problems and unknowns, and tackling challenges.

Travel. This is a remote, full-time position that requires the ability to travel. We travel an average of 3–5 days every quarter, and we'll always do our best to work with your schedule.

Teach. We'll discuss opportunities for you to present at conferences, attend and give training, plan and run meetups or local groups, and create various kinds of content in your expertise.

• Competitive salary and annual bonus opportunity

• Completely remote work with flexible hours

• 401(k) matching

• 4 weeks of paid time off in addition to 8 paid holidays

• Health, dental, and vision insurance offerings

• Paid maternity and paternity leave

• STD, LTD, and Life Insurance coverage

Please share a resume or LinkedIn profile and answer the additional questions. Yes, we read through all the answers!

Please note that we are not interested in working with recruiters. All job offers are contingent on passing a background check. Candidates must be located in and authorized to work in the United States; we are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

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