Lead Java Developer

Bullock Tech Talent Partners; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 1,000,000 - 1,700,000; Full time

Job summary

Bullock Tech Talent Partners is partnering with an international 5G engineering and design business to hire a Cape Town-based Senior Java Team Lead. You will lead a hands-on team delivering high-volume, low-latency Java services with a strong Spring Boot stack.

You'll own delivery for your team's slice of the platform, including planning, code quality, tech direction, and stakeholder communication, while staying hands-on to ship production code weekly.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building production Java systems with at least 2 years leading a team of engineers.
• Strong Spring Boot and modern Java (17+); able to architect a service from scratch.
• Real microservices experience: service boundaries, async messaging, API design, versioning, observability.

Responsibilities

• Lead the team (about 30%): break down projects, allocate work, track delivery and run sprint ceremonies.
• Stay hands-on (about 70%): design and build services on Java 17+ / Spring Boot; write production code weekly.
• Own code review standards; ensure timely, high-quality reviews and alignment with product goals.
• Drive architecture decisions, design reviews, and trade-offs; mentor engineers and contribute to hiring decisions.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

Microservices

PostgreSQL

MySQL

AWS

Docker

CI/CD

Linux

Git

Agile/Scrum

Claude AI tools

Education

BSc / Diploma in Computer Science

Oracle Certified Professional (Java)

Tools

Terraform

Kafka

RabbitMQ

SQS

Kotlin

Go

Claude AI tooling

Nginx

ECS/EKS

Job description

Role: Senior Java Team Lead

Location: Cape Town City Centre

"Looking for a strong Team Lead with good Java experience and the ability to thrive in rapidly growing, fast-paced international technology startup"

We are assisting our client, an international 5G engineering and design business, source for a Cape Town-based Senior Java Team Lead.

About the role:

The Senior Java Team Lead will run a small team building high-volume, low-latency systems on a modern Java / Spring Boot stack. This is a hands-on lead role: you'll write and review code, but your bigger job is organising the team's work, unblocking people, and making sure what our client ships is solid.

You’ll own delivery for your team's slice of the platform: planning, work allocation, code quality, technical direction, and stakeholder communication. You’ll report into engineering leadership and have a real say in architecture and hiring.

What you’ll actually do:

Lead the team (about 30% of your time)

• Break down projects into work, allocate to engineers based on strengths and growth goals, and track delivery.
• Run sprint planning, standups, and retros. Keep the team's backlog healthy and prioritised with the product side.
• Do 1:1s with each engineer. Coach, give feedback, flag performance issues early.
• Own code review standards on the team. Make sure reviews happen quickly and raise the bar over time.
• Be the point of contact for other teams, product, and ops when something on your patch needs a decision.
• Contribute to hiring: screen CVs, run technical interviews, help shape the team you want.

Stay hands-on (about 70% of your time)

• Design and build services on our Java 17+ / Spring Boot stack. You should still be writing production code every week.
• Drive technical design for non-trivial work. Write design docs, run design reviews, make the calls on trade-offs.
• Lead the team's response to production issues. Triage, root-causes, and follow through on fixes.
• Keep the architecture honest: push back on shortcuts that will hurt us in six months, agree to ones that won\'t.

What we need from you:

Experience

• 8+ years building production Java systems, with at least 2 years leading a team of engineers (formal or informal lead).
• Strong Spring Boot and modern Java (17+). You can build a service from scratch and explain every choice.
• Real microservices experience: service boundaries, async messaging, API design, versioning, observability. Not just "we had multiple services."
• Solid with PostgreSQL or similar (schema design, query tuning, migrations). MySQL is fine too.
• AWS in production: ECS or EKS, S3, IAM, plus infrastructure-as-code (Terraform preferred).
• Docker in your sleep. CI/CD pipelines you've built or meaningfully improved.
• Comfortable with Linux and standard web server / reverse proxy setups (Nginx, Apache).
• Git workflow fluency (branching strategies, code review, GitHub or GitLab).
• You’ve worked in Agile / Scrum and have opinions on what works and what\'s theatre.

AI tooling: fluent but not dependent:

Our client uses Claude (and similar tools) heavily across the engineering team. They want a lead who uses them well, not someone who\'s either skeptical or over-reliant.

• You actively use Claude (Claude Code or the chat interface) day to day for coding, debugging, design exploration, and writing.
• Comfortable with vibe coding for prototypes, spikes, and throwaway tooling. You know when it\'s the right tool and when it isn\'t.
• You can read AI-generated code critically. You catch the subtle bugs, you push back on bad suggestions, and you don\'t ship code you don\'t understand.
• You can teach junior engineers how to use AI tools without becoming dependent on them. Fundamentals first, AI as a multiplier.
• Red flag: engineers who can\'t debug or design without an AI assistant, or who paste in AI output without reading it.

How you work:

• You explain your thinking clearly, in writing and out loud, to both engineers and non-engineers.
• You\'re decisive. You’d rather make a reversible call now than wait a week for perfect information.
• You give feedback directly and kindly. You take it the same way.
• You finish things. "Almost done" doesn\'t count.

Qualifications:

• BSc / Diploma in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Oracle Certified Professional (Java) is a plus, not a requirement.

Nice to have:

• Experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS).
• Performance tuning experience on low-latency systems (JVM tuning, profiling, caching strategies).
• Exposure to Kotlin, Go, or other JVM / backend languages.