Backend/Data Engineer for Horse Racing Analytics & Trading Platform

We are building a long-term AI-powered horse racing analytics and trading-style platform. This is a specific backend/data engineering role for an existing project. The current system already includes a Next.js frontend, FastAPI backend, SQLite database, race dashboard, Formula Lab, Results page, and race data ingest system. The main focus of this role is backend architecture, database design, race data ingestion, scraping/API integration, live odds updates, WebSockets, and scalable data systems. Main Responsibilities - Review the current Next.js frontend flow and FastAPI backend structure. - Review the existing SQLite database and race data ingest logic. - Suggest backend architecture improvements and identify scalability risks. - Plan or implement migration from SQLite to PostgreSQL. - Build and improve REST API endpoints for races, runners, results, odds, model outputs, and users. - Design clean database models and relationships. - Build data ingestion pipelines for race data, odds data, results, and historical records. - Integrate official APIs where available. - Build scraping pipelines where APIs are not available. - Add WebSocket or server-sent event support for live odds and race updates. - Improve data validation, deduplication, retry logic, logging, and error handling. - Support future AI/RAG backend integration for race explanations and prediction insights. - Add backend tests, documentation, and deployment preparation. Required Skills - Python and FastAPI. - SQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL. - REST API development. - WebSockets, server-sent events, or real-time backend systems. - Data ingestion, ETL pipelines, and API integration. - Web scraping with Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, BeautifulSoup, or similar tools. - Database schema design and query optimization. - Background jobs, schedulers, queues, or retry systems. - Git and GitHub workflow. - Clean backend architecture and clear documentation. Nice to Have - Experience with sports analytics, racing data, betting platforms, trading dashboards, or fintech. - Experience with odds data, fair odds, implied probability, ROI, backtesting, or prediction systems. - Experience with Redis, Celery, RQ, Kafka, or other queue/event systems. - Experience with AI/LLM backend integration, RAG, embeddings, or vector databases. - Experience with Docker, AWS, Railway, Render, Vercel, or similar deployment tools. - Experience with pytest, API testing, CI/CD, logging, and monitoring. Workflow Shortlisted candidates will review the GitHub repository and share brief feedback or improvement ideas by video, screenshot, or text. Work will continue through clear milestones or hourly tasks. We prefer long-term collaboration with a reliable backend/data engineer. When Applying - GitHub name or GitHub link. - Relevant backend, data pipeline, scraping, or real-time system examples. Note - This is a specific backend/data engineering role for an existing horse racing analytics platform. - The main focus is backend architecture, database design, live data ingestion, scraping, APIs, WebSockets, and scalable data systems.