Jobs in Gelsenkirchen, United States

Lead Software Engineer (m / f / d) Kotlin

Location : remote (occasional travel to other locations within Germany)

Contract : Initially limited until December 2026 (planned to be transferred to a newly founded government-funded company with permanent contracts)

Start Date : As soon as possible

About Us

We are looking for people who want to shape the future with us. As part of SPRIND, an organization that is called the Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovations but thinks like a start-up. Our goal is to create new breakthrough innovations from Germany. That means products, services and systems that make all of our lives noticeably and sustainably better. To do this, we connect new thinkers from science and business, people with outstanding ideas, special expertise and passion.

In the EUDI Wallet Ecosystem project, which SPRIND is carrying out on behalf of the newly formed Federal Ministry of the Digitalization and State Modernization (BMDS), a German implementation of the EU eIDAS 2.0 regulation including a digital wallet is being developed. Representatives of organized civil society, business associations and administration as well as experts from science are involved in a public consultation process that accompanies the project. Mid-term this project will be transformed into a to-be-founded government-owned entity that takes over the EUDI Ecosystem for the permanent further development and operation of the platform.

Your Role

As a Lead Software Engineer with a focus on Kotlin, you will take technical ownership of an agile development team and shaping the future of secure digital identity in Europe. You’ll play a key role in designing and building the backend architecture of a high-trust digital wallet solution used across regulated, privacy-sensitive domains.

Your Responsibilities

• Take technical ownership of the development and evolution of the Kotlin-based wallet’s backend services, including :
• Remote trust anchor (Cloud HSM) integration
• Wallet and credential lifecycle
• Vulnerability management
• System telemetry and statistics
• Lead and mentor a cross functional team incl. front-end-, back-end-, QA-, UX / UI-, system-engineers
• Ensure clean, well-tested code and continuous integration
• Make architectural and technology decisions in coordination with our product owner
• Support the recruitment and onboarding of technical talent

What we’re looking for :

• At least a decade of professional experience in back-end development incl. 3+ years with Kotlin and in a technical leadership role as well
• Strong proficiency in Kotlin and solid understanding of modern backend architecture (e.g., microservices, REST, event-driven design)
• Experience with Spring framework (with Kotlin)
• Deep knowledge of modern cryptography, secure protocol implementation, and identity management standards
• Knowledge of Hardware Security Modules and cryptographic key management is a plus
• Hands-on experience with DevOps, CI / CD pipelines, and cloud-native operations
• Agile mindset (Scrum / Kanban), strong communication skills, and a collaborative spirit
• Fluent in English; German language skills are a plus