Senior Java Engineer

Burns Sheehan; Manchester; On-site; GBP 95,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Burns Sheehan is helping a Manchester FinTech scale its backend infrastructure with a greenfield project, offering substantial ownership and architecture influence.

You will join an engineering-led team to build high-performance, distributed services in Java with Spring Boot and Kafka, shaping the platform's direction.

This role suits Senior or Staff Engineers who enjoy hands-on coding, mentoring others and delivering robust, observable systems.

Qualifications

• Senior Backend Engineer or Staff Engineer with distributed systems experience.
• Experience designing cloud-native architectures and scalable services.
• Strong knowledge of testability, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.
• Ability to mentor engineers and drive engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end delivery of backend services from design to production.
• Build scalable Java applications using Spring Boot and Kafka.
• Collaborate with Product and Design to solve technical challenges.
• Influence architecture, scalability, reliability and performance.
• Promote testing, automation and observability across the platform.
• Mentor engineers and help create a high-performing team.
• Champion secure software development and best practices.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

CI/CD

DevOps practices

Observability

Mentoring

Tools

Java

Spring Boot

Kafka

Microservices

Job description

Senior Backend Engineer | Greenfield FinTech | Shape the future of a scaling platform

Looking for more ownership, bigger technical challenges and the chance to build something from the ground up?

I'm partnered with a leading Manchester-based FinTech that's investing heavily in its engineering function and building an entirely new team to deliver the next generation of its platform.

This is a genuine greenfield opportunity where you'll help shape the architecture, influence technical direction and build resilient, high-performance systems that will support the company's future growth.

You'll be joining an engineering-led environment where you'll have the autonomy to solve complex technical problems, contribute to architectural decisions and help establish best practices from day one.

What you'll be doing

• Owning the end-to-end delivery of backend services, from design through to production
• Building scalable Java applications using Spring Boot, Kafka and modern microservice architecture
• Collaborating with Product, Design and Engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges
• Influencing architecture, scalability, reliability and performance across the platform
• Driving engineering best practices around testing, automation, CI/CD and DevOps
• Supporting and mentoring engineers while helping create a high-performing engineering culture
• Championing observability, resilience and secure software development
• Greenfield products with plenty of technical ownership
• Shape architecture and engineering standards from the outset
• Build high-throughput distributed systems used at scale
• Work alongside experienced engineers in a collaborative, product-focused team
• Join a business investing heavily in technology, engineering and innovation

What they're looking for

You'll likely be a Senior Backend Engineer, Senior Software Engineer or Staff Engineer with experience building distributed systems and modern cloud-native applications.

You'll have strong experience with:

• Java and Spring Boot
• Event-driven or distributed architectures (Kafka or similar)
• Microservices and scalable backend systems
• CI/CD, automated testing and DevOps practices

Exposure to AI-powered products or integrations would be a bonus, but it's by no means essential.