Developer – Scala

CyberNorth; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

CyberNorth is expanding its HCM Localisation engineering team by hiring a Backend Developer to design, develop, and maintain large-scale cloud services. You will work on scalable backend systems that support complex workflows, with a focus on performance, reliability, and platform modernization.

The role is hybrid, requiring 3 days per week in our Newcastle office. You will collaborate with frontend engineers, QA, product owners and solution designers to deliver high quality increments while

Qualifications

• Must have professional backend development experience in enterprise/SaaS/cloud environments.
• Strong hands-on Scala experience including Futures, immutability, and functional design.
• Commercial experience with Play Framework or JVM backends; Pekko/Akka is relevant.
• Relational DB experience with MySQL, SQL tuning, and query profiling.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services using Scala 2.13 and Play Framework.
• Build clean, testable, and maintainable code with functional programming principles.
• Work with MySQL to optimize queries, indexes and data access patterns.
• Develop, deploy, and support services in AWS with DevOps collaboration.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, PR workflows, and code reviews.
• Collaborate with frontend, QA, product owners, and other backend developers.

Skills

Scala backend development

Functional programming

Distributed systems thinking

Team collaboration in Agile

Problem solving

Tools

Play Framework

Pekko/Akka

MySQL

Redis

AWS

Git CI/CD

Job description

We are looking for a Backend Developer to join our HCM Localisation engineering team and help evolve a large-scale, cloud-based enterprise product. This role is focused on building and maintaining scalable backend services supporting complex product workflows, integrations, performance improvements, and ongoing platform modernisation.

*** Please note: This is a hybrid role requiring 3 days per week in our Newcastle office ***

In this role you’ll:

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services using Scala 2.13 and Play Framework in a Pekko-based environment.
• Build clean, testable, and maintainable code using functional programming principles, immutability, pattern matching, and asynchronous programming with Futures.
• Work with MySQL to design efficient data access patterns, optimize queries, tune indexes, and profile database performance.
• Develop, deploy, and support services in AWS, working closely with DevOps and platform teams to ensure reliable delivery.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, Git-based pull request workflows, code reviews, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with frontend engineers, QA, product owners, solution designers, and other backend developers to deliver high-quality product increments.
• Support production stability by investigating issues, improving observability, and continuously reducing technical debt.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Professional backend development experience, ideally in enterprise, SaaS, or cloud-based product environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with Scala, including collections, Futures, immutability, pattern matching, error handling, and clean functional design.
• Commercial experience with Play Framework or comparable JVM backend frameworks; Pekko or Akka experience is highly relevant.
• Strong understanding of relational databases, especially MySQL, with practical knowledge of SQL optimization, indexes, query profiling, and transaction behaviour.
• Experience using Redis or similar technologies for caching, session handling, or performance-sensitive workloads.
• Deep understanding of OOP principles, functional programming, concurrency, the Scala type system, and advanced architectural patterns (e.g., Tagless Final, type classes, effect systems).
• Ability to design and evolve complex distributed systems while promoting engineering best practices across the team.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services and cloud-native delivery practices.
• Good understanding of CI/CD, Git, branching strategies, pull request flows, automated testing, and release practices.
• Ability to work effectively in distributed Agile teams, communicate clearly, and take ownership of complex technical problems.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with Squeryl, Doobie, or similar Scala data access libraries.
• Familiarity with Grafana or Kibana dashboards, alerting, logging, and production observability practices.
• Experience with large distributed systems, horizontal scaling, resilient service design, or high-throughput Play / Pekko applications.
• Previous experience in Payroll, HR, HCM, ERP, compliance-heavy, or localisation-focused product domains.
• Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish language skills would be beneficial, but are not essential.

Ways of Working:

• Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and able to balance new feature development with maintenance, bug fixing, and technical improvement work.
• Proactive in code reviews, design discussions, troubleshooting, and knowledge sharing across the engineering team.
• Strong problem-solving mindset, attention to detail, and willingness to work with an established codebase while helping modernise it over time.