Software Engineering Manager

Optum; Dadri, Hyderabad, Bengaluru; Hybrid; INR 3,500,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Optum seeks a senior backend engineer to design and implement scalable backend services in Java and Python, leveraging event-driven microservices with Kafka. You will model databases, craft streaming/batch pipelines, and integrate AI/ML features, collaborating with data science teams to deliver robust, production-ready solutions.

Responsibilities include ensuring reliability, observability, and performance, and mentoring junior engineers while working with cross-functional teams to advance

Qualifications

• 12+ years of backend software engineering experience in Java and/or Python.
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases; performance tuning and transactions.
• Distributed systems design: microservices, REST/gRPC, caching, resiliency patterns.
• Proven AI-enabled solutions experience: LLM integration, ML inference, vector databases.
• Hands-on Kafka production experience: exactly-once/at-least-once, schema evolution.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain backend services and APIs using Java and Python.
• Architect event-driven/microservices solutions with Kafka.
• Model and optimize relational/NoSQL databases; perform migrations.
• Develop data pipelines (streaming and batch) with reliability and observability.
• Build AI-enabled features and collaborate with data science teams.
• Ensure production readiness: CI/CD, automated tests, monitoring, incident response.
• Enforce engineering best practices: code reviews, secure coding, mentoring.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, QA, platform/SRE, stakeholders.

Skills

Java

Python

Kafka

REST/gRPC

Distributed systems

AI/ML integration

CI/CD

Tools

PostgreSQL/MySQL/Oracle

MongoDB/Cassandra

Docker/Kubernetes

Pinecone/Weaviate/pgvector

AWS/Azure/GCP

Job description

Primary Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs using Java and Python
• Architect and implement event-driven/microservices solutions using Kafka (topics, partitions, consumer groups, schemas, retries/DLQs)
• Model, optimize, and maintain relational and/or NoSQL databases (schema design, indexing, query tuning, migrations)
• Develop data processing pipelines (streaming and batch) with solid focus on reliability, observability, and performance
• Build and integrate AI/ML-powered features (model inference services, prompt orchestration, vector search, or ML pipelines) and collaborate with data science teams
• Ensure production readiness: CI/CD, automated testing, monitoring/alerting, and incident response/root-cause analysis
• Enforce engineering best practices: code reviews, secure coding, documentation, and mentoring junior engineers
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, QA, platform/SRE, and stakeholders to deliver roadmap initiatives

Required Qualifications:

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend systems in Java and/or Python
• Solid experience with databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL/Oracle and/or MongoDB/Cassandra), including performance tuning and transactional consistency
• Experience designing distributed systems (microservices, REST/gRPC, concurrency, caching, resiliency patterns)
• Proven experience delivering AI-enabled solutions (LLM integration, ML inference deployment, feature engineering, vector databases such as Pinecone/Weaviate/pgvector, or MLOps tools)
• Hands-on expertise with Kafka in production (exactly-once/at-least-once semantics, schema evolution, monitoring, capacity planning)
• Solid understanding of cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and CI/CD
• Proven solid problem-solving, communication, and ability to lead technical design discussions