Java Server-side Engineer

Server-side Engineer

1. Under-the-Hood Engineering Depth

We expect you to understand how your tools function beneath the syntax:

• Deep knowledge of runtime behavior (e.g., JVM memory model, garbage collection mechanics, thread pools, event loops, or coroutines).
• Clear mental models of networking, HTTP protocol mechanics, connection pooling, and serialization overhead.
• Concrete understanding of database internals (e.g., indexing mechanics, locking mechanisms, query execution plans, and transaction isolation levels).

2. Architecture & Deliberate Trade-Offs

You must be prepared to articulate and defend engineering decisions:

• Justify architectural choices: Monolith vs. Microservice, REST vs. GraphQL, synchronous RPC vs. event-driven pipelines.
• Weigh trade-offs across consistency, latency, network payload sizes, and developer ergonomics when designing client-facing data layers.
• Navigate database selection (relational SQL vs. NoSQL document/key-value stores) based on query patterns, access frequency, and data integrity guarantees.

3. Production-Grade Enterprise Reliability

Financial platforms require defense in depth and fault containment

• Proactive defensive programming, strict input validation, data masking, and adherence to enterprise security standards.
• Resilient dependency management: zero cascading failures when downstream services degrade or fail.
• Clean code fundamentals: clear separation of concerns, high-signal automated tests, and readable abstractions that support team velocity.

Qualifications & Skills

Baseline Requirements

• Proven track record building and operating server-side applications and distributed microservices in production.
• Solid experience designing and consuming RESTful APIs and event-driven architectures with Apache Kafka.
• Hands-on database exposure across relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL) or NoSQL data stores (e.g., MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB); balanced exposure to both paradigms is highly valued.
• Experience with automated testing suites (unit, integration, regression) and modern CI/CD automation tools.
• Strong debugging, root-cause analysis, and performance optimization skills.

Preferred Technical Stack & Experience

• Languages: Java, Kotlin, or equivalent modern server-side languages.
• API Technologies: REST, GraphQL, RAML, OpenAPI/Swagger.
• Build & Delivery: Gradle, Maven, Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins/GitLab CI.
• Legacy Modernization: Comfort diving into legacy enterprise codebases, identifying domain boundaries, and safely migrating functionality to modern services without downtime.