Remote Full-Stack & AI Engineer: Backend, ML & Microservices

Optum; Basking Ridge (NJ); Remote; USD 92,000 - 164,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

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Job summary

Optum is seeking a senior software engineer to design, build, and maintain scalable backend services using Java and Python. You will architect event-driven microservices with Kafka, tune databases, and develop data pipelines while ensuring reliability and performance.

You will also integrate AI-powered features and collaborate with data science teams to deliver robust solutions. Requirements include 8+ years in backend engineering, 3+ years in cloud platforms and databases, 2+ years on Kafka in

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend systems in Java and/or Python.
• 3+ years of experience with databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL/Oracle and/or MongoDB/Cassandra), including performance tuning and transactional consistency.
• 3+ years of experience in cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and CI/CD.
• 2+ years of experience with Kafka in production (exactly-once/at-least-once semantics, schema evolution, monitoring, capacity planning).
• 2+ years of experience designing distributed systems (microservices, REST/gRPC, concurrency, caching, resiliency patterns).
• 1+ years of experience delivering AI-enabled solutions (LLM integration, ML inference deployment, feature engineering, vector databases such as Pinecone/Weaviate/pgvector, or MLOps tools).

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain backend services and APIs using Java and Python.
• Architect and implement event-driven/microservices solutions using Kafka.
• Model, optimize, and maintain relational and/or NoSQL databases.
• Develop data processing pipelines (streaming and batch) with focus on reliability and performance.
• Build and integrate AI/ML-powered features and collaborate with data science teams.
• Ensure production readiness: CI/CD, automated testing, monitoring, and incident response.

Skills

Java

Python

Databases

Cloud platforms

Kafka

Distributed systems

AI/ML integration

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Optum is seeking a senior software engineer to design, build, and maintain scalable backend services using Java and Python. You will architect event-driven microservices with Kafka, tune databases, and develop data pipelines while ensuring reliability and performance.

You will also integrate AI-powered features and collaborate with data science teams to deliver robust solutions. Requirements include 8+ years in backend engineering, 3+ years in cloud platforms and databases, 2+ years on Kafka in