Backend Kotlin Engineer

Cognizant; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 paid holidays per year

NS Business Card for public transport

Cognizant Academy access

Competitive salary aligned withManager

Job summary

Cognizant in the Netherlands is seeking a backend engineer to design and develop resilient services using Kotlin and Java. You will work on secure microservices for banking branch workflows, collaborating across teams and mentoring peers to deliver scalable solutions that meet enterprise standards.

The role emphasizes Spring Framework expertise, Kafka event-driven patterns, and SQL optimization, with a hybrid work setup in the Netherlands and a focus on balance and wellbeing.

Qualifications

• Strong Kotlin and Java development experience.
• Strong knowledge of microservice architectures.
• Deep proficiency in Spring Framework, Spring Boot, Spring Kafka and Spring Data JPA/JDBC.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience designing event-driven architectures with Kafka.
• Proficiency in relational databases and SQL optimization.
• Mastery of OO design principles and design patterns.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop resilient backend services using Java/Kotlin.
• Build secure microservices to support banking branch workflows.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and mentor peers.

Skills

Kotlin

Java

Microservices

Spring Boot

Spring Kafka

Spring Data JPA

SQL optimization

PostgreSQL

Oracle

CI/CD

Kafka

OO design

Patterns

Tools

PostgreSQL

Oracle

OpenTelemetry

Jaeger

Prometheus

Micrometer

Spring Framework

Kafka

Job description

About the Role

Design and develop resilient backend services using modern Java frameworks, Kotlin and SQL to support critical banking branch account setup maintenance and closure workflows in a hybrid day shift model.

The role focuses on creating secure microservices that enhance operational efficiency, reduce risk and improve customer experiences while collaborating with cross-functional teams and mentoring peers to deliver scalable solutions that align with enterprise standards.

Work Model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role's business requirements, this is a hybrid position based in the Netherlands. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs.

What You Must Have

• Strong professional Kotlin and Java development experience.
• Strong knowledge of microservice architectures.
• Deep proficiency in Spring Framework, especially Spring Boot (auto-configuration, actuator, externalized config), Spring Kafka (consumers, producers, error handling, idempotent producers), and Spring Data JPA / JDBC (for staging table interactions).
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience designing event-driven architectures with Kafka (topics, schemas, consumer groups, exactly-once semantics).
• Proficiency in relational databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, or similar) and SQL optimization.
• Mastery of object-oriented design principles and design patterns, with experience building extensible, pluggable frameworks—not just applications.

What Will Help You Stand Out

• Knowledge of data pipeline anti-patterns (e.g., tight coupling to sources, file-based handoffs, polling loops).
• Experience with observability: logging (SLF4J/Logback), metrics (Micrometer/Prometheus), tracing (OpenTelemetry/Jaeger).
• Understanding of data governance concepts: lineage, audit trails, reconciliation.
• Experience with cloud-native batch processing (e.g., AWS Batch, GCP Dataflow, Azure Batch).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, ability to translate business migration requirements into technical abstractions, excellent communication skills to articulate architectural trade-offs, and experience working in cross-functional teams (data engineers, DBAs, SREs, product owners).

What We Offer (Netherlands)

• Competitive salary aligned with Manager Level grade
• Access to Skillspring & Cognizant Academy
• NS Business Card for public transport
• 25 paid holidays per year