Product Engineer - Returns Portal

At parcelLab, we’re reshaping how the world’s leading brands manage the post‑purchase experience.

Our post‑purchase platform helps companies like John Lewis, Chico's, Yeti, AllSaints, and others transform every touchpoint into moments that drive customer engagement, build loyalty, and create customers for life.

We’re looking for a Product Engineer — a product‑focused builder with strong agency — to help evolve our Returns Portal , a white‑label SaaS used by customers in 175+ countries . You’ll work on a large‑scale Django application with a modern Python toolchain (uv/mypy/Ruff/Pydantic) and a server‑driven UI stack (HTMX/Alpine).

The role:

You will design and evolve the backend systems behind our returns experiences—owning problems end‑to‑end: clarify outcomes, collaborate with Product and Design, and ship reliable, observable services that make returns fast, clear, and correct.

What you’ll do:

• Lead services & workflows from concept to impact: model data, implement APIs and jobs, instrument, launch, and iterate.
• Design and evolve domain models & rules for returns (RMAs, eligibility, routing, bundles) with safe migrations and clear boundaries.
• Build and maintain APIs (REST/GraphQL) and endpoints that power our server‑driven UI (HTMX/Alpine).
• Integrate with commerce systems (e.g., Shopify) and order/warehouse tools: design and operate API/webhook integrations, keep orders and RMAs in sync, and ensure idempotent, reliable synchronization and backfills.
• Raise the bar on engineering practices: typing (mypy), validation (Pydantic), code quality (Ruff), CI/CD, and thoughtful reviews.
• Own quality in production: monitor performance and error rates; fix what you ship.

What we’re looking for:

• Proficiency with Python in production, ideally (nice to have) with Django.
• Strong SQL fundamentals, relational modeling, and safe migrations.
• Experience building APIs (REST) and working with job queues.
• Comfort with modern Python tooling: uv, mypy, Ruff, Pydantic.
• Testing mindset (unit/integration) and continuous delivery know‑how.
• Evidence of agency: stories where you drove an outcome end‑to‑end.

Bonus Points:

• Experience with server‑driven UIs (Django templates + HTMX/Alpine).
• Tailwind CSS and solid CSS fundamentals (layout, responsive, a11y) for pragmatic UI tweaks in server‑rendered templates.
• Shopify ecosystem exposure (Admin API, webhooks, embedded apps).
• E‑commerce/returns domain familiarity (bundles, routing, warehousing).
• Observability and SLO practice (metrics, tracing, error budgets); performance tuning in Django at scale.

Our stack:

Python 3.14, Django, HTMX/Alpine.js (server‑driven UI), mypy, Ruff, Pydantic, uv; PostgreSQL (relational), Redis, a job queue (Celery), REST API / GraphQL, AWS, Terraform, GitHub Actions, feature flags, Sentry/Datadog observability.

Why join parcelLab:

• You’ll join a passionate and collaborative global team with plenty of room to grow
• Competitive salary + benefits
• A culture that values creativity, experimentation, and ownership

Perks & Benefits: