Senior Web Scraping Developer (5-7 yrs)

About the Job

Role Overview :

- We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Web Scraping Developer to lead the design, development, and maintenance of sophisticated web scraping solutions.

- You will be instrumental in building robust, scalable, and efficient data extraction pipelines, tackling complex anti-scraping measures, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality, actionable data.

- This role requires a deep understanding of web technologies, strong problem-solving skills, and the ability to work independently and collaboratively within a dynamic team.

Key Responsibilities :

Advanced Scraping Development :

- Design and implement advanced web scraping solutions using Python, JavaScript, and related frameworks (Scrapy, Selenium, Puppeteer, Beautiful Soup).

- Develop and maintain parsers to extract structured data from diverse and complex websites.

- Implement sophisticated techniques for handling dynamic content, including AJAX, JavaScript rendering, and single-page applications (SPAs).

- Optimize scraping processes for speed, reliability, and minimal resource consumption.

Anti-Crawling and Security :

- Develop and implement robust anti-crawling countermeasures, including IP rotation, proxy management, CAPTCHA solving, and user-agent manipulation.

- Analyze and circumvent advanced anti-scraping techniques, such as honeypots, bot detection, and rate limiting.

- Ensure compliance with website terms of service and ethical scraping practices.

- Implement and manage browser fingerprinting avoidance.

Data Pipeline and Storage :

- Design, develop, and maintain efficient data pipelines for processing, transforming, and storing scraped data.

- Optimize database schemas and queries for large-scale data storage and retrieval (PostgreSQL, MySQL, NoSQL databases).

- Implement data validation and quality control measures to ensure data accuracy and consistency.

- Implement data versioning, and change tracking.

Backend and Cloud Integration :

- Develop and maintain backend APIs using frameworks like Flask, FastAPI, Django, or Node.js to expose scraped data.

- Integrate web scraping solutions with cloud platforms (Azure) for scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

- Implement serverless functions and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) for efficient deployment and management.

- Utilize message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka) for distributed scraping tasks.

Data Analysis and ML/NLP :

- Utilize data processing libraries (NumPy, Pandas) for data cleaning, transformation, and analysis.

- Implement machine learning and natural language processing techniques for data enrichment, sentiment analysis, and information extraction.

- Develop and maintain data visualization tools and dashboards to present scraped data insights.

- Develop data quality reports, and anomaly detection.

Testing and Debugging :

- Conduct thorough testing of scraping scripts and data pipelines to ensure reliability and accuracy.

- Utilize API testing tools (Postman, MITM proxies, browser DevTools) for debugging and troubleshooting.

- Implement logging and monitoring systems to track scraping performance and identify issues.

- Implement unit testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing.

Collaboration and Communication :

- Work closely with data scientists, analysts, and other stakeholders to understand data requirements and deliver solutions. -

- Document technical specifications, code, and processes.

- Mentor junior developers and share knowledge of web scraping best practices.

- Participate in code reviews.

Research and Development :

- Stay up to date with the newest techniques in web scraping, and anti-scraping countermeasures.

- Research and implement new tools and technologies to improve scraping efficiency and effectiveness.

Required Skills :

- Expert proficiency in Python and JavaScript.

- Extensive experience with web scraping frameworks and libraries (Scrapy, Selenium, Puppeteer, Beautiful Soup).

- Deep understanding of HTTP/HTTPS protocols, APIs, and web technologies.

- Strong knowledge of database systems (SQL, NoSQL) and data warehousing concepts.

- Proven experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes).

- Advanced knowledge of anti-crawling techniques and security best practices.

- Experience with data processing and analysis libraries (NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn).

- Familiarity with machine learning and natural language processing concepts.

- Proficiency in API testing and debugging tools.

- Strong understanding of network protocols, and web browser internals.

- experience with version control systems (Git).

- Experience with CI/CD pipelines.

Qualifications :

- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.

- 5+ years of professional experience in web scraping, data extraction, or related areas.

- Proven track record of developing and deploying large-scale web scraping solutions.

- Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.

- Excellent communication and collaboration skills.