Who we are

Just Russel is on a mission to change the way people care for their pets, through convenience, preventive health and data-driven decisions. We believe every pet deserves the best, and we're building the technology to make that happen at scale.

As the 6th fastest-growing company in Belgium (Deloitte Fast 50), we're expanding rapidly across BE, NL, DE and FR. We're not just growing in headcount, we're growing in ambition, complexity and technical depth. That means real challenges, real ownership, and the kind of impact that's actually visible in what you ship.

The role

As a Software Engineer in our Russel Excellence team, you sit at the heart of how new customers experience Just Russel for the first time. Your work directly shapes whether someone becomes a loyal subscriber or bounces after day one. That's not a small thing.

You work end-to-end: from scoping a problem with product and design, to writing production-grade code, to operating what you've built and iterating based on real data. No handoffs to "ops". No throwing code over the wall. You own it.

You'll be part of a cross-functional team with Product, Design and Data, and you'll collaborate with engineers across the wider platform. We move fast, but we care about doing things right.

What you'll do

• Design, build and operate reliable, scalable backend systems using Python, FastAPI and Django

• Own features completely: from technical design and implementation to testing, deployment, monitoring and reflection

• Build and maintain well-designed APIs that integrate cleanly with frontend services and third-party tools

• Take responsibility for production systems: uptime, incident response, and continuous improvement

• Contribute to and uphold architecture, code quality and deployment standards across the team

• Improve engineering practices structurally: CI/CD, observability, testing and documentation

• Proactively identify technical debt and improvement opportunities, and act on them

• Help raise the technical bar within the team through code review, knowledge sharing and leading by example

• Manage containerisation and deployment using Docker and Kubernetes in a modern GCP cloud environment
  

What we're looking for

• 5+ years of professional experience as a software engineer, ideally in a scale-up or product-led environment

• Strong proficiency in Async Python, with solid hands-on experience in Django and/or FastAPI

• Experience building and maintaining relational databases (PostgreSQL), with a real care for data integrity and query performance

• Solid understanding of REST API design and service-to-service communication in microservice architectures

• Practical experience with Docker, Kubernetes and containerisation strategies for Python-based services

• Familiarity with GCP (or comparable cloud platforms) and modern deployment pipelines

• Comfortable with CI/CD, Git and automated testing (PyTest); exposure to TDD/BDD is a plus

• Basic understanding of cloud networking and security best practices

• A clear, direct communicator who can talk about trade-offs, risks and constraints without drama

• Pragmatic, curious, and genuinely energised by solving problems in a fast-moving environment
  

Why join Just Russel?

We’re on a mission to change the way people care for pets, through convenience, preventive health and data-driven decisions. Our ambition is to become Europe’s leading D2C Pet Care brand.

As the 6th fastest-growing company in Belgium (Deloitte Fast 50), we’re scaling fast, which means:

• Real technical challenges

• Real ownership

• Real impact 🚀

We live by our A PET HERO values:
Agile, Personal Growth, Entrepreneurial, Team Strength, Honest & Direct, Eager & Engaged, Rational Decisions, One Team

Our offer

• 🛠️ The right tools to do your job, without headaches or drama

• 💻 Professional laptop

• 📱 iPhone with subscription

• 🏥 Healthcare plan (incl. Alan daily care)

• 🥪 Meal vouchers

• 🕛 Flexible working hours and locations, 4-day office rhythm

• 🍏 Fresh fruit (and cookies 🤫)

• 🧑‍🎓 Dedicated budget for learning and development

• 🍺 🎉 🏂 Team drinks, events and activities

📍 This role reports to the Technical Owner and is based in Nevele.