Staff Engineer - Java

dLocal; Barcelona; Hybrid; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work style

Fintech environment

Referral bonus program

Work From Anywhere

Job summary

dLocal is seeking a highly skilled Staff Engineer to join our Payments Performance team in Barcelona. You will design and evolve systems powering payment routing, fraud prevention, and anomaly detection, building real-time decision tools and scalable architectures to optimize performance and cost.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure robust, high-performance platforms that meet current and future needs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in software engineering or computer science.
• 7+ years of professional experience in Java development.
• Solid experience in Java application development and software architecture.
• Knowledge of object-oriented design principles and design patterns.
• Proficient in writing clean, efficient, readable code.
• Experience with AWS or GCP cloud platforms (desired).
• Experience with Spring and Hibernate frameworks.
• Experience with event-driven architecture design.
• Strong project management skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and teamwork abilities.
• Upper-intermediate English proficiency.
• Good understanding of the software development life cycle.
• Experience with monitoring/telemetry tools (New Relic, Datadog, Grafana+Prometheus, Dynatrace, CloudWatch, ELK).

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with technology leaders and product team to translate goals into technical solutions.
• Design, develop, and maintain high-quality Java applications and systems.
• Lead the technical architecture and design of Java projects for scalability and performance.
• Create scalable architecture for Java applications to support future growth.
• Optimize application performance through code and database optimizations.
• Troubleshoot design flaws and bottlenecks to improve stability and performance.
• Perform validation tests for flexibility and scalability of the Java environment.
• Conduct system performance tests to identify bottlenecks and capacity needs.
• Generate and present detailed system reports with metrics and recommendations.
• Conduct code reviews to maintain high standards of software development.

Skills

Java development

Software architecture

OO design principles

Clean code

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP)

Spring/Hibernate

Event-driven architecture

Telemetry/Monitoring tools

Team collaboration

English communication

SDLC

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in software engineering or computer science

Job description

Why Join dLocal?

dLocal is the financial infrastructure powering global commerce in the world's fastest-growing markets. The biggest companies in the world trust us to unlock growth in 60+ countries across emerging markets—moving money where others see complexity. We don't just process payments; we are architects of payment ecosystems and partners in our customers' expansion. You'll work alongside 1,300+ teammates from 40+ nationalities and tackle global challenges from day one.

Why Join dLocal?

dLocal is the financial infrastructure powering global commerce in the world's fastest-growing markets. The biggest companies in the world trust us to unlock growth in 60+ countries across emerging markets—moving money where others see complexity. We don't just process payments; we are architects of payment ecosystems and partners in our customers' expansion. You'll work alongside 1,300+ teammates from 40+ nationalities and tackle global challenges from day one.

We are looking for a highly skilled Staff Engineer to join our Payments Performance team.

This team is focused on optimizing payment performance across multiple dimensions: improving conversion rates, maximizing take rate, and keeping fraud and operational costs under control while ensuring compliance.

As a Staff Engineer, you will play a key role in designing and evolving the systems that power critical areas such as payment routing, fraud prevention, and anomaly detection. This includes building and scaling systems that intelligently decide which processors handle each transaction, developing real-time fraud decisioning tools based on data and machine learning models, and enabling proactive detection of anomalies across business and operational metrics.

You will work closely with cross-functional teams to design robust, scalable, and high-performance systems, ensuring they meet both current and future needs. Your expertise in system design and architecture will be essential in driving technical decisions, improving our platform, and helping the team navigate complex challenges.

This role requires a strong strategic mindset and the ability to understand the broader impact of technical decisions, as you’ll be contributing directly to the evolution of one of the most critical areas of our platform.

What will I be doing?

• Collaborate with technology leaders and the product team to understand department goals and requirements, translating them into technical solutions
• Design, develop, and maintain high-quality Java applications and systems aligned with business objectives
• Lead the technical architecture and design of Java-based projects, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability
• Create scalable architecture systems for Java-based applications, considering future growth and evolving business needs
• Optimize application performance by identifying and addressing areas for improvement, such as code optimization, database query optimization, and resource utilization
• Troubleshoot design flaws and system bottlenecks to enhance application stability and performance
• Perform validation tests to ensure the flexibility and scalability of the Java environment, making necessary adjustments as needed
• Conduct comprehensive system performance tests to identify bottlenecks, assess system capacity, and fine-tune application performance
• Generate and present detailed systems reports, including performance metrics, bottlenecks, and recommendations for improvements
• Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback to maintain high standards of software development, ensuring code quality, readability, and adherence to best practices

What skills do I need?

• Bachelor’s degree in software engineering or computer science
• Minimum of 7 years of professional experience in Java development
• Solid experience in Java application development and software architecture
• In-depth knowledge of object-oriented design principles and design patterns
• Ability to write clean, efficient, and readable code
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or GCP (desired)
• Experience with Java development frameworks like Spring and Hibernate
• Event-driven architecture design experience
• High-level project management skills
• Ability to solve complex software system issues
• Good verbal and written communication skills
• Being a team player, enjoying working with your own team and collaborating with other teams in the organization
• Upper-intermediate written and spoken English proficiency
• Well-versed in the software development life cycle
• Experience with monitoring applications in production using telemetry tooling such as Newrelic, Datadog, Grafana + Prometheus, Dynatrace, CloudWatch, distributed logs like ELK, etc

What do we offer?

Besides the tailored benefits we have for each country, dLocal will help you thrive and go that extra mile by offering you:

• Flexibility in how you work: We focus on impact and productivity over fixed hours. This means our teams have flexible schedules and, depending on your role and location, you will combine self‑managed focus time with moments of in‑person connection in our collaboration hubs
• Fintech industry: work in a dynamic and ever-evolving environment, with plenty to build and boost your creativity
• Referral bonus program: our internal talents are the best recruiters - refer someone ideal for a role and get rewarded
• Work From Anywhere: Team members can work while traveling for up to 3 months every year