Backend Engineer – Java & Spring Boot (Microservices)

Experience: 1+ years/someone who has exceptional knowledge and hands on experience

Employment Type: Full-time

Work Environment: Fast-paced startup

About the Role

We are looking for a skilled and driven Backend Engineer with strong expertise in Java and Spring Boot to join our engineering team. This is a backend-heavy role focused on building, maintaining, debugging, and scaling reliable microservices.

As a startup, we operate in a fast-paced environment where priorities can evolve quickly, execution matters, and engineers are expected to take ownership of their work. We are looking for someone who can move beyond simply implementing assigned requirements — someone who can understand problems, evaluate solutions, investigate unfamiliar technologies independently, and deliver high-quality results within deadlines.

You should have a strong understanding of Java internals, hands-on experience building Spring Boot microservices, solid problem-solving skills, and the ability to use AI-powered coding tools effectively to accelerate development without compromising code quality.

Key Responsibilities

• Backend Development: Design, develop, test, and maintain backend services using Java 17/21 and Spring Boot.
• Microservices Architecture: Build and maintain scalable, resilient, and maintainable microservices.
• Reactive Programming: Work with Spring WebFlux and reactive programming principles where required.
• API Development: Design, implement, and maintain RESTful APIs with appropriate validation, error handling, security, and performance considerations.
• Database Engineering: Work with PostgreSQL and AWS RDS to design queries, optimize database performance, and maintain data integrity.
• Messaging & Caching: Implement asynchronous communication and event-driven workflows using Apache Kafka and caching mechanisms using Redis.
• Third-Party Integrations: Integrate external services and APIs into backend applications, handling authentication, failures, retries, and edge cases.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Work with AWS services to support the deployment, operation, and monitoring of backend applications.
• Debugging & Troubleshooting: Investigate production issues, identify root causes, and implement reliable fixes.
• System Design: Contribute to technical discussions involving service boundaries, data flow, scalability, resilience, and architectural trade-offs.
• AI-Assisted Development: Use tools such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and other AI-powered development tools effectively to accelerate coding, debugging, testing, and code understanding.
• Ownership & Execution: Take responsibility for assigned tasks from requirement understanding through implementation, testing, debugging, and delivery.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with frontend engineers and other team members to deliver end-to-end product functionality.Required Skills & Qualifications
• Java & Spring Boot
• Strong hands-on experience with Java 17 or Java 21.
• A solid understanding of Java fundamentals, object-oriented programming, collections, generics, exception handling, and concurrency.
• Good understanding of how Java works internally, including JVM architecture, memory management, garbage collection, class loading, and multithreading.
• Practical experience developing backend applications using Spring Boot.
• Understanding of dependency injection, Spring configuration, application lifecycle, and exception handling.
• Familiarity with Java AOP and its practical use cases.
• Understanding of reactive programming and hands-on experience with Spring WebFlux.2. Microservices & System Design
• At least one year of hands-on experience developing or maintaining Java and Spring Boot applications, preferably in a microservices environment.
• Understanding of scalable and resilient microservices architecture.
• Knowledge of service-to-service communication, API design, failure handling, retries, timeouts, and fault tolerance.
• Decent understanding of system design fundamentals and common architectural patterns.
• Ability to identify edge cases and make sensible engineering trade-offs.3. Databases & Messaging
• Hands-on experience with PostgreSQL and relational database concepts.
• Understanding of SQL queries, joins, indexing, transactions, and query optimization.
• Familiarity with AWS RDS or similar managed relational database services.
• Working knowledge of Apache Kafka, including producers, consumers, topics, and consumer groups.
• Familiarity with Redis and common caching patterns.4. APIs, AWS & Integrations
• Strong understanding of REST API principles and hands-on experience implementing REST APIs in Java.
• Prior experience integrating third-party services or external APIs into backend applications.
• Basic practical knowledge of AWS and cloud-based application deployment.
• Understanding of API authentication, error handling, timeouts, retries, and secure handling of credentials.5.Frontend Fundamentals

Although this is primarily a backend role, candidates should have a basic understanding of frontend development, including:

• JavaScript fundamentals.
• React.js fundamentals.
• Next.js fundamentals.
• How frontend applications communicate with backend services through APIs.
• How to investigate and debug basic frontend-to-backend integration issues.Note: Advanced frontend development skills are not required; the primary focus of this position is backend engineering.

6. AI-Powered Development Tools

• Hands-on experience using AI-assisted coding tools such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent tools.
• Ability to use AI tools effectively for code generation, refactoring, debugging, test creation, and understanding unfamiliar codebases.
• Ability to critically review AI-generated code, identify incorrect assumptions, and ensure correctness, security, and maintainability.
• Willingness to continuously improve development workflows using modern engineering tools.Important: We value engineers who use AI tools to improve productivity while retaining strong fundamentals and the ability to reason about code independently.

What We Are Looking For

We are particularly interested in candidates who demonstrate the following qualities:

• Strong problem-solving ability: Can break down complex problems, reason through edge cases, and develop practical solutions.
• Ownership mindset: Takes responsibility for tasks and drives them to completion rather than waiting for constant guidance.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment: Can adapt to changing priorities, manage competing tasks, and deliver within agreed timelines.
• Independent learning: Can investigate unfamiliar technologies, read documentation, debug issues, and figure things out with minimal supervision.
• Execution-focused approach: Understands the importance of delivering working solutions quickly without sacrificing essential engineering quality.
• Strong coding skills: Writes clean, readable, maintainable code and understands the underlying logic rather than relying solely on generated solutions.
• Adaptability: Comfortable working across different parts of the backend stack and collaborating with frontend engineers when needed.
• Analytical thinking: Can identify root causes instead of relying on temporary fixes.Preferred Qualifications
• Experience working in a startup or another fast-moving engineering environment.
• Experience troubleshooting backend issues in deployed or production-like systems.
• Familiarity with application logging, monitoring, performance analysis, and debugging tools.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, Git workflows, automated testing, and code reviews.
• Familiarity with containerization and cloud-native application development.Technology Stack

The primary technologies used in this role include:

• Languages: Java 17/21, JavaScript
• Backend Frameworks: Spring Boot, Spring WebFlux
• Programming Concepts: Java AOP, reactive programming, concurrency
• Architecture: Microservices, REST APIs, system design
• Databases: PostgreSQL, AWS RDS
• Messaging: Apache Kafka
• Caching: Redis
• Cloud: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Frontend Fundamentals: React.js, Next.js
• AI Development Tools: Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent
• Engineering Practices: Debugging, testing, performance optimization, and root-cause analysisWhy Join Us?
• Work in a startup environment where engineers can make meaningful technical contributions.
• Take ownership of backend services and solve real-world engineering problems.
• Work with modern backend technologies, cloud infrastructure, and microservices architecture.
• Learn quickly by working on challenging problems across the engineering stack.
• Use AI-powered development tools as part of a modern and productivity-focused engineering workflow.Who Should Apply?

This role is best suited for an engineer who has solid Java and Spring Boot fundamentals, practical backend development experience, and the motivation to take ownership in a fast-moving startup.

If you enjoy solving difficult problems, learning independently, building scalable backend systems, and delivering solutions without waiting for every step to be prescribed, we would love to hear from you.

I have included this as I feel as in this stage of Ambia and for this role, this skills are mandatory for anyone who joins Ambia Systems for the backend.