Senior Software Engineer — (Contractor, LATAM)

About the Role

Orchid is hiring a Senior Software Engineer to join one of our client engineering teams. You'll work as a true partner alongside our current senior engineer. You'll interact with the client directly and daily, so this role suits someone who is as comfortable owning client conversations as they are owning code.

What You'll Do

• Partner with our senior engineer on this account to plan, build, and ship — sharing ownership of delivery, not waiting to be assigned tasks.
• Work directly with the client's team on a daily basis: standups, status updates, and scoping conversations.
• Own your own work end-to-end, including flagging risk and communicating timelines proactively — no dedicated PM layer on this account.
• Get productive fast: this account cannot support a long ramp-up period.

What We're Looking For

• Senior, hands-on software engineer — genuinely senior, not a junior or mid-level profile stretching into a senior role.
• Backend experience with Python and Flask, including SQLAlchemy (or a comparable ORM) and relational databases (MySQL/MariaDB). Frontend experience with a server-rendered stack: Jinja2 templates, Bootstrap, JavaScript/jQuery, and Webpack — this is not a modern SPA (React/Vue/etc.) codebase. Hands-on experience with REST/API integrations is a must.
• Fluent English, spoken and written — this is a daily client-facing role and communication is non-negotiable.
• Prior experience at a consulting, professional-services, or client-facing agency environment strongly preferred.
• Comfortable working as a peer/partner to another senior engineer rather than under a manager — some PM instinct (tracking scope, flagging risk, driving status) is expected.
• Fast learning curve — able to ramp into an existing codebase and client relationship quickly.

Nice to Have

• Insurance, risk, or fintech domain experience.
• Experience working in a two-person senior "tandem" model on an account (vs. a large team with dedicated support roles).
• Comfortable picking up custom in-house packages and internal tooling on top of the core stack.

Engagement: Independent Contractor
Location: Latin America (remote)
Compensation: $70,000–$80,000 USD/year, DOE