Backend Java Engineer - Cloud-Native Spring Boot & AWS

Instil; Belfast City District; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

Private healthcare

Generous pension contributions

Life assurance

35 days holiday

Employee Assistance Programme

Job summary

Instil is seeking a Mid-Level Software Engineer to join a Belfast-based team, developing scalable Java applications within a cloud-native platform. You will design and enhance critical backend services, build integrations, and consume REST APIs while working across AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, and observability tooling.

You’ll contribute to secure, resilient systems, collaborate with product and platform teams, and participate in CI/CD and testing practices to deliver reliable software for

Qualifications

• Strong commercial experience with Java and Spring Boot.
• Experience designing and building RESTful APIs.
• Experience with PostgreSQL in production environments.
• Familiarity with Flyway for DB migrations.
• Experience building containerised apps with Docker.
• Experience with Kubernetes or similar orchestration.
• Knowledge of cloud-native architectures and AWS services.
• Experience with messaging/event-driven systems.
• Strong testing mindset including automated integration tests.
• Experience troubleshooting production apps and supporting ops.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services using Java 21+ and Spring Boot.
• Build and enhance integrations between internal and third-party platforms.
• Design, develop, and consume REST APIs.
• Work with PostgreSQL databases, including schema design and migrations with Flyway.
• Develop event-driven solutions using AWS SQS/SNS and S3.
• Write automated tests with modern frameworks; use Testcontainers.
• Develop and maintain local environments with Docker Compose.
• Deploy and operate apps in Kubernetes.
• Monitor and optimise performance with Datadog.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate requirements into robust solutions.
• Contribute to CI/CD practices and continuous improvement.
• Apply secure coding principles and support production systems.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

REST APIs

PostgreSQL

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

Testcontainers

Datadog

CI/CD

Tools

Spring Boot

PostgreSQL

Flyway

Docker Compose

Kubernetes

AWS SQS

AWS SNS

Datadog

Job description

Instil is seeking a Mid-Level Software Engineer to join a Belfast-based team, developing scalable Java applications within a cloud-native platform. You will design and enhance critical backend services, build integrations, and consume REST APIs while working across AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, and observability tooling.

You’ll contribute to secure, resilient systems, collaborate with product and platform teams, and participate in CI/CD and testing practices to deliver reliable software for