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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Associate Developer

💰 $50,000 - $85,000

EngineeringSoftware DevelopmentInformation Technology

🎯 Role Definition

We are hiring an Associate Developer to join a collaborative engineering team delivering high-quality software products. The Associate Developer will contribute to feature development, bug fixes, automated tests, and deployment tasks while learning established architecture, coding standards, and team processes. This role is optimized for candidates who want structured mentorship, real-world application development experience, and a clear path to mid-level engineer responsibilities.

Primary SEO keywords: Associate Developer, junior software engineer, entry-level developer, Java developer, .NET developer, full stack developer, REST API, Agile, CI/CD.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Software Engineering Intern or Apprenticeship Programs
  • Coding Bootcamp Graduates or Self-taught Developers with portfolio projects
  • Junior Developer / Graduate Developer roles

Advancement To:

  • Software Developer / Developer (Mid-level)
  • Senior Developer or Specialist Engineer
  • Technical Lead / Team Lead

Lateral Moves:

  • Quality Assurance Engineer (automation focus)
  • DevOps Engineer (CI/CD, infrastructure as code)
  • Front-end Specialist or Back-end Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, implement, and maintain clean, modular, and well-documented code for new features and enhancements in accordance with team coding standards and architectural guidelines.
  • Develop and consume RESTful APIs and microservices, integrating backend services with web or mobile front-ends and third-party systems.
  • Write and maintain automated unit tests and integration tests (e.g., JUnit, NUnit, pytest, Jest) to ensure code quality and prevent regressions.
  • Participate in peer code reviews, provide constructive feedback, and incorporate review feedback to raise overall code quality and consistency.
  • Debug and troubleshoot production issues by analyzing logs, replicating defects in local or staging environments, and delivering timely fixes.
  • Collaborate with product managers, designers, QA, and senior engineers to translate functional requirements into technical implementations and accurate estimates.
  • Contribute to sprint planning, grooming sessions, and other Agile ceremonies; break down user stories into actionable tasks and deliver on sprint commitments.
  • Implement feature toggles and rollback strategies to safely deploy changes to production environments.
  • Maintain and update technical documentation, runbooks, API docs, and onboarding materials to improve team knowledge sharing and reduce operational risk.
  • Follow secure coding practices and participate in threat modeling or security reviews to reduce vulnerabilities in application code.
  • Optimize application performance by identifying bottlenecks, proposing improvements, and implementing efficient algorithms or data access patterns.
  • Integrate applications with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB), including writing efficient queries and supporting schema evolution.
  • Work with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) to automate builds, tests, and deployments and to maintain reliable release processes.
  • Use source control systems (Git) effectively: branch by feature, open pull requests, follow branching strategies, and resolve merge conflicts.
  • Build and maintain front-end components using modern frameworks (React, Angular, Vue) or server-side templating when applicable, ensuring responsive and accessible user experiences.
  • Assist in creating and executing manual and automated test plans for new functionality and deployable releases.
  • Implement logging, monitoring, and alerting instrumentation to improve observability and provide actionable alerts for production incidents.
  • Participate in on-call rotations or support windows, responding to incidents and following incident management postmortems and remediation plans.
  • Collaborate on database migrations, data transformation jobs, and ETL processes, ensuring data integrity and backward compatibility.
  • Contribute to refactoring initiatives that improve maintainability, reduce technical debt, and modernize legacy codebases.
  • Implement integration with cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) for storage, compute, messaging, and managed services per project requirements.
  • Apply data structures, algorithms, and design patterns to implement robust, scalable solutions aligned to performance and cost targets.
  • Stay current with emerging technologies and recommend practical improvements that align with the product roadmap and engineering strategy.
  • Mentor interns or newer team members on coding practices, debugging tips, and environment setup to accelerate their onboarding and effectiveness.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in user acceptance testing (UAT) coordination and support business stakeholders in validating feature behavior.
  • Help maintain development and staging environments, including containerization (Docker) and local dev tooling.
  • Participate in accessibility and usability reviews, implementing small remediation tasks to meet standards.
  • Create demo environments and example apps to showcase feature flows and accelerate stakeholder feedback.
  • Help triage and prioritize backlog items based on customer impact, technical complexity, and risk.
  • Gather and synthesize customer and stakeholder feedback to inform iterative improvements and future requirements.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficient in at least one backend language such as Java, C#, Python, Ruby, or Go with demonstrable project experience.
  • Familiarity with front-end technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript and frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.
  • Experience building and consuming RESTful APIs and understanding of HTTP, JSON, and API versioning patterns.
  • Solid understanding of relational databases (SQL) and experience writing optimized queries; familiarity with NoSQL databases is a plus.
  • Practical experience with unit testing and test-driven development (TDD) practices and frameworks (e.g., JUnit, pytest, Jest).
  • Comfortable using Git for source control, including branching, pull requests, and resolving merge conflicts in collaborative teams.
  • Exposure to CI/CD tools and pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI) for automated testing and deployment.
  • Basic containerization knowledge (Docker) and awareness of container orchestration concepts (Kubernetes) is preferred.
  • Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud) for deploying applications and using managed services.
  • Familiarity with logging and monitoring tools (ELK, Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic) to support observability and incident response.
  • Understanding of secure coding principles, authentication/authorization patterns (OAuth, JWT), and common web security risks.
  • Knowledge of software design principles, data structures, algorithms, and common design patterns.
  • Ability to read and work with existing large codebases and perform refactoring safely while adding tests.

Soft Skills

  • Strong verbal and written communication skills to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Collaborative mindset; proven ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams and pair-program when needed.
  • Problem-solving orientation with a methodical approach to debugging, root-cause analysis, and remediation.
  • Eagerness to learn, accept feedback, and grow technical skills through mentorship and hands-on experience.
  • Attention to detail, producing reliable, well-tested deliverables with a focus on maintainability.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to balance multiple tasks within Agile sprint cadences.
  • Customer-focused attitude with the ability to translate user requirements into practical engineering solutions.
  • Resilience under pressure and the ability to stay composed during production incidents with process-driven responses.
  • Initiative to propose small process improvements that increase team efficiency and product quality.
  • Ethical judgment and data privacy awareness when working with sensitive user or business data.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience (coding bootcamps, relevant open-source contributions, internships).

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical discipline; relevant certifications (AWS, Azure, Oracle, Microsoft) a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Data Science or related quantitative fields

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 0 to 3 years of professional software development experience. Candidates with strong internship, academic, or project experience are encouraged.

Preferred:

  • 1–3 years of experience developing production software, exposure to Agile teams, and a track record of delivering at least one shipped feature or service.

If you are a motivated developer who enjoys hands-on coding, collaborative problem solving, and continuous learning, the Associate Developer role is an excellent step toward a fulfilling engineering career.

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