Senior Java/Kotlin Tech Lead - APIs & Microservices

TEKsystems; Sheffield; Hybrid; GBP 74,000 - 111,000; Full time

Job summary

Tier 1 Financial Services Company in Sheffield is seeking a Development Lead (Kotlin/Java) to provide technical leadership for an agile team. The role focuses on back-end features, API/microservices, and collaboration across engineering and product teams.

Hybrid working pattern with office presence two days per week. You will shape technical approaches, refine backlogs, and ensure delivery-ready work while mentoring engineers in best practices and secure coding.

Qualifications

• Strong Kotlin experience, or significant Java experience with willingness to learn Kotlin.
• Experience leading or acting as a senior engineer within an agile delivery team.
• Proven ability to refine and decompose work, manage dependencies, and remove blockers.
• Strong experience in microservices and API development.
• Experience with asynchronous messaging technologies such as Kafka or similar event-driven platforms.
• Experience in API/SQL/HTML/Databases.
• Strong problem-solving and production support mindset.
• Experience with GitHub, Bitbucket, Jira and Confluence.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; collaborative across teams.
• Proactive ownership of end-to-end delivery.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day technical leadership for an agile engineering team.
• Lead backlog refinement, breaking epics into user stories and defining acceptance criteria.
• Support sprint planning by shaping technical approaches and identifying spikes.
• Design, develop and implement back-end features (Kotlin/Java) with some UI work.
• Build and evolve APIs and microservices with consistent engineering patterns.
• Contribute to architectural decisions with the Tech Lead.
• Deliver end-to-end solutions from idea to ongoing support.
• Coach team members in engineering best practices and clean code.
• Drivеп peer reviews and engineering standards for quality and readability.
• Work in an agile CI/CD environment promoting automation and quality gates.
• Collaborate with developers, testers and the wider organisation.
• Engage with customers/users to resolve issues and requests.

Skills

Kotlin

Java

Leadership

Agile delivery

API development

Microservices

Kafka

GitHub

Bitbucket

Jira

Confluence

SQL/Databases

HTML/JavaScript

Communication

Tools

GitHub

Bitbucket

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Tier 1 Financial Services Company in Sheffield is seeking a Development Lead (Kotlin/Java) to provide technical leadership for an agile team. The role focuses on back-end features, API/microservices, and collaboration across engineering and product teams.

Hybrid working pattern with office presence two days per week. You will shape technical approaches, refine backlogs, and ensure delivery-ready work while mentoring engineers in best practices and secure coding.