Senior Software Engineer

Initiate International; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 600 000 - 900 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading sports technology company in Cape Town is seeking a backend engineer to design and build scalable services in Java and Spring. You will be responsible for end-to-end feature delivery and collaborating with a skilled team. Ideal candidates have a strong background in Java, the Spring ecosystem, and a passion for high-performance systems. You'll enjoy a mature engineering culture in a beachfront office, with perks like medical aid and annual leave.

Benefits

Discovery Medical Aid

21 days annual leave

Discretionary company performance bonus

Qualifications

• Experience building enterprise-grade Java applications with strong OO design.
• Hands-on experience with the Spring ecosystem.
• Ability to design maintainable, observable, and scalable systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable backend services in Java and Spring.
• Own end-to-end feature delivery from design to deployment.
• Collaborate with Product and engineering to shape solutions.

Skills

Java applications

Spring ecosystem

SQL

Git

Performance tuning

iGaming experience

Tools

MySQL

MongoDB

GCP

Docker

Cypress

Postman

GitHub

IntelliJ Ultimate

Job description

Imagine building world‑class sports betting and gaming platforms steps from the ocean, with Table Mountain as your daily backdrop.

This is not a cliché. This is your commute.

Our clients Cape Town engineering hub is a core pillar of a global sports media and sports betting ecosystem, responsible for delivering high‑performance, in‑house gaming software used by millions of fans worldwide.

This team doesnt follow trends — they set them.If you thrive on complex systems, clean architecture, and real‑world scale, and you want your code to power brands that sit at the intersection of sport, technology, and entertainment, read on.

What Youll Actually Work On

• Designing and building scalable backend services in Java and Spring that support betting, media, and real‑time sports products.
• Owning end-to-end feature delivery — from design through implementation, deployment, and post‑release optimisation.
• Working on high‑throughput, low‑latency systems where performance, resilience, and security genuinely matter.
• Writing clean, testable, production‑ready code and holding the bar high through code reviews and design discussions.
• Collaborating directly with Product and other engineers to shape solutions, not just implement tickets.
• Designing and optimising relational data models, writing efficient SQL, and managing migrations without breaking production.
• Improving developer experience — tooling, pipelines, performance, observability.
• Using AI tools pragmatically (Copilot, AgentSpace) to accelerate delivery, not replace thinking.
• Participating in Agile delivery without ceremony overload — stand‑ups, planning, retros that actually lead to change.

Your Core Stack

• Databases: MySQL, MongoDB
• Cloud: GCP
• Frontend (exposure): VueJS, Angular
• Version Control: GitHub
• IDE: IntelliJ Ultimate
• Testing & APIs: Cypress, Postman
• CI/CD & Containers: Docker, modern pipelines

What Were Looking For

You should be comfortable with:

• Building enterprise‑grade Java applications with strong OO design.
• Deep hands‑on experience with the Spring ecosystem.
• Designing systems that are maintainable, observable, and scalable.
• Writing SQL that doesnt make DBAs cry.
• Using Git properly — branches, pull requests, reviews, ownership.
• Mentoring engineers and raising standards without ego.
• Thinking in trade‑offs, not absolutes.
• Experience in iGaming, betting, fintech, or other regulated, high‑scale environments.
• CI/CD ownership, Docker, or cloud infrastructure exposure.
• Frontend awareness (you dont have to love it, just understand it).
• Performance tuning, message‑driven systems, or event‑based architectures.

Why Engineers Stay Here

• Youre trusted with real responsibility.
• Technical decisions are debated, not dictated.
• You work with people who care about code quality and outcomes.
• The systems are complex enough to stay interesting.
• The office just happens to be on the Cape Town beachfront.
• Discovery Medical Aid
• 21 days annual leave
• Discretionary company performance bonus
• A mature engineering culture that values output over noise

Not a Perfect Match?

Good engineers rarely are.

If you enjoy solving hard problems, shipping real systems, and working with people who take engineering seriously — apply.