Java Backend Engineer

Queen Square Recruitment Ltd; City of Edinburgh; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Queen Square Recruitment Ltd is seeking an experienced technical lead to drive onshore delivery of Java backend services in a 1 year contract. You will design and build Spring Boot microservices and REST APIs, leveraging Kafka for event-driven architectures, and coordinate cross-team efforts across client, product, and offshore engineering groups.

You will guide teams on secure coding, CI/CD, and cloud deployments using GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, and Helm, while driving design, reviews, and

Qualifications

• Experience leading distributed engineering delivery.
• Banking/Financial Services knowledge.
• Strong client-facing communication and stakeholder management.
• Expert in Spring, Spring Boot, REST APIs and Microservices.
• Hands-on with CI/CD pipelines and automated testing.
• Experience with GCP, Docker, Kubernetes and Helm.

Responsibilities

• Lead onshore technical delivery of Java backend services.
• Design and develop Java/Spring Boot microservices and REST APIs.
• Build event-driven services with Kafka.
• Translate business requirements into technical designs and backlogs.
• Lead technical discussions, code reviews, and governance.
• Guide engineers on secure coding practices.
• Drive quality with BDD/TDD, JUnit, and CI/CD.
• Support cloud deployment using GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm.
• Coordinate integration testing, defect triage, and release readiness.
• Collaborate with Product Owners, Architects, DevOps, QA and offshore teams.
• Identify risks and blockers; ensure timely resolution.
• Support production incidents and root-cause analysis.
• Maintain technical documentation and knowledge transfer.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering best practices.

Skills

Technical leadership

Client-facing

Agile/Scrum

Jira/Confluence

Stakeholder management

Microservices

Spring Boot

REST APIs

Kafka

Cloud native

Tools

GCP

Docker

Kubernetes

Helm

Jenkins

Git

SonarQube

Job description

1 year Contract

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the onshore technical delivery of Java backend services, coordinating across client, product, architecture and offshore engineering teams.
• Design and develop scalable, secure Java / Spring Boot microservices and REST APIs.
• Build and integrate event-driven services using Apache Kafka.
• Translate business requirements into technical designs, implementation plans, estimates and engineering backlogs.
• Lead technical discussions, impact assessments, code reviews and engineering governance.
• Guide engineers on implementation standards, reusable design patterns and secure coding practices.
• Drive engineering quality through BDD/TDD, JUnit, automated testing and CI/CD.
• Support cloud-native application deployment using GCP, Docker, Kubernetes and Helm.
• Coordinate integration testing, defect triage, release planning and production readiness.
• Work closely with Product Owners, Architects, DevOps, QA and offshore development teams.
• Identify technical risks, dependencies and blockers, ensuring timely resolution.
• Support production incidents, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis and long-term fixes.
• Maintain technical documentation, knowledge transfer and operational handover.
• Strong expertise in Spring, Spring Boot, REST APIs and Microservices.
• Experience designing and developing Kafka-based, event-driven applications.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and cloud application deployment.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes and Helm.
• Strong understanding of BDD/TDD, JUnit and automated unit testing.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Jenkins, Git and SonarQube.
• Knowledge of API gateways, API security and service-to-service integration.
• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle, release management and production readiness.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments using Jira and Confluence.
• Proven experience leading technical delivery across distributed engineering teams.
• Strong client-facing communication, stakeholder management and technical leadership skills.
• Previous experience leading onshore/offshore engineering delivery.
• Experience within Banking / Financial Services.
• Knowledge of scalability, resilience, performance optimisation and observability.
• Experience with production support, incident management and root-cause analysis.
• Familiarity with cloud monitoring, logging and operational support.
• Understanding of banking integrations, payments, cards or customer-servicing platforms.
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving engineering best practices.