Principal Java Engineer

Ocho People; Belfast City; Hybrid; GBP 81,000 - 99,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working Belfast

Bonus and benefits package

Career progression

Job summary

Ocho People seeks a Senior Java Engineer in Belfast, offering hybrid work. You will design and scale backend services that power a global platform, with ownership of architecture, technical direction and engineering standards.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with product teams, and drive performance, reliability and quality across distributed systems in a true product engineering environment.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building large-scale Java-based backends.
• Strong cloud-native development experience, ideally AWS.
• Proven ability to design distributed, highly available systems.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers.
• Product-minded with ability to partner with product teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and evolve scalable backend services.
• Contribute to system architecture and technical decisions.
• Improve performance, scalability and reliability of distributed systems.
• Collaborate with product, architecture and engineering teams.
• Drive code quality, testing and delivery best practices.
• Mentor and support other engineers.

Skills

Java

Distributed systems

Mentoring

Product mindset

Team collaboration

Tools

AWS

CI/CD pipelines

Infrastructure as Code

Job description

Senior Java Engineer

Location

Belfast (Hybrid working)

Salary

Up to £90,000 depending on experience

Type

Full-time, Permanent

Overview

Ocho is working on behalf of a global, product-led technology company that builds large-scale digital platforms used by leading retail and consumer brands worldwide. This is a true product engineering environment where teams take long-term ownership of complex systems, rather than delivering short-term projects.

They are now looking for a Senior Java Engineer to join a high-performing team, playing a key role in shaping and scaling core backend services that power their platform. This is a hands‑on position with real influence over architecture, technical direction, and engineering standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build and evolve highly scalable backend services
• Contribute to system architecture and technical decision-making
• Improve performance, scalability, and reliability across distributed systems
• Collaborate closely with product, architecture, and engineering teams
• Drive best practices across code quality, testing, and delivery
• Mentor and support other engineers within the team

Person We Are Looking For

• Strong commercial experience building large-scale systems using Java
• Deep understanding of cloud-native development, ideally within AWS
• Experience designing and working with distributed, highly available systems
• Comfortable leading technically and mentoring senior engineers
• Strong product mindset with experience working alongside product teams

Tech Environment

• Java for core backend development
• AWS-based cloud infrastructure
• Microservices and event-driven architecture
• Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD pipelines
• Modern observability and monitoring tooling

What's on Offer

• Opportunity to work in a true product engineering environment at scale
• Strong engineering culture with real ownership and autonomy
• Hybrid working model with Belfast-based office
• Clear long-term progression aligned to a growing product roadmap
• Competitive salary, bonus, and benefits package