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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Backend Java Developer

💰 $90,000 - $150,000

EngineeringBackendJavaSoftware DevelopmentCloudMicroservices

🎯 Role Definition

The Backend Java Developer is responsible for architecting, developing, and operating resilient server-side systems using Java and related ecosystem technologies. This role produces clean, well-tested code; designs robust API contracts; optimizes performance and scalability; integrates distributed systems; and collaborates cross-functionally with product, frontend, QA, SRE, and security teams. A strong candidate demonstrates modern backend best practices (microservices, cloud-native patterns, containerization, observability) and an ownership mindset for production services and releases.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Java Developer
  • Software Engineer (Backend)
  • Full-Stack Developer with strong Java experience

Advancement To:

  • Senior Backend Java Developer / Senior Software Engineer
  • Tech Lead / Lead Backend Engineer
  • Software Architect / Principal Engineer
  • Engineering Manager (with people management track)

Lateral Moves:

  • Full-Stack Engineer
  • DevOps / Platform Engineer
  • Cloud Engineer
  • Data Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, implement, and maintain scalable backend services and microservices in Java (Java 8/11/17+), leveraging Spring Boot/Spring Cloud to meet product requirements, reliability targets, and performance SLAs.
  • Build well-documented, versioned, and secure RESTful APIs and gRPC endpoints, collaborating with frontend and API consumers to define contract-first interfaces and backward-compatible changes.
  • Architect and implement resilient microservices patterns including service discovery, circuit breakers, retries, bulkheads, and graceful degradation to improve system reliability.
  • Integrate backend services with relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis) data stores, designing efficient schemas, indexes, and data access layers using JPA/Hibernate or native drivers.
  • Lead design and implementation of messaging-based integrations using Kafka, RabbitMQ or AWS SQS/SNS for asynchronous processing, guaranteeing exactly-once or at-least-once semantics where required.
  • Drive performance tuning and capacity planning for CPU, memory, database, and I/O bottlenecks; run profiling, heap analysis, and load testing (JMeter, Gatling) to identify and remediate hotspots.
  • Implement secure coding practices, perform threat modeling, and collaborate with security teams to enforce authentication (OAuth2/OpenID Connect), authorization, encryption, and compliance controls.
  • Build automated, maintainable unit, integration, and contract tests (JUnit, Mockito, TestContainers), and ensure high code coverage while prioritizing meaningful tests that catch regressions early.
  • Own CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI) for building, testing, containerizing, and deploying services; automate rollback and canary/blue-green deployment strategies.
  • Containerize applications with Docker and manage lifecycle in orchestration platforms (Kubernetes / EKS / GKE / AKS); define Helm charts and Kubernetes manifests for production deployments.
  • Instrument services with logging, metrics, and distributed tracing (ELK/EFK, Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, Zipkin) to ensure observability, fast incident response, and SLA adherence.
  • Establish and drive coding standards, code reviews, and architecture documentation to maintain code quality and accelerate onboarding of new team members.
  • Collaborate with SRE/operations to define SLOs/SLIs, runbooks, health checks, and alerting, and participate in on-call rotations to troubleshoot and remediate production issues.
  • Refactor legacy monoliths into modular, testable components or microservices incrementally while minimizing risk and coordinating database migrations and breaking changes.
  • Implement caching strategies (in-memory, Redis, CDN) and data replication to reduce latency and database load while ensuring cache consistency and eviction policies.
  • Ensure data integrity and reliability across distributed transactions, using idempotency keys, saga patterns, and compensating transactions when necessary.
  • Mentor junior and mid-level engineers, provide technical guidance during design discussions, and participate in hiring and interview processes to grow the team.
  • Collaborate closely with product managers to translate business requirements into technical specifications, delivering features with pragmatic tradeoffs and clear acceptance criteria.
  • Manage API versioning, deprecation plans, and backward compatibility; communicate changes to stakeholders and provide migration support for consumers.
  • Perform root-cause analysis of incidents, produce postmortems with actionable remediation plans, and work cross-functionally to eliminate single points of failure.
  • Contribute to cross-team architecture reviews, evaluate technology choices and third-party tools, and lead pilots to validate new platform components.
  • Optimize build times, dependency management, and library upgrades to reduce technical debt and ensure secure third-party usage.
  • Design and implement batch processing, ETL pipelines, or streaming consumers where data processing or transformation is required as part of backend workflows.
  • Maintain comprehensive technical documentation including API docs (OpenAPI/Swagger), architecture diagrams, onboarding guides, and runbooks to improve team productivity.

Secondary Functions

  • Support production troubleshooting, incident response, and carry out root cause analysis with clear remediation and follow-up actions.
  • Provide ad-hoc technical support for integration partners and internal stakeholders, helping to diagnose and resolve API or data issues quickly.
  • Assist in performance benchmarking and capacity growth planning across services, databases, and messaging systems.
  • Participate in sprint planning, grooming, and other agile ceremonies; estimate tasks and commit to sprint deliverables.
  • Contribute to team knowledge sharing via brown-bags, internal tech talks, and onboarding documentation to raise overall team competency.
  • Collaborate with security and compliance teams to complete audits, code scans, and vulnerability mitigation activities.
  • Help maintain and evolve the service catalog, internal libraries, and developer tooling to boost engineering velocity and consistency.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert proficiency in Java (8, 11, 17+) and strong understanding of JVM internals, garbage collection, and performance tuning.
  • Deep experience with Spring ecosystem (Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Spring Data, Spring Security, Spring Cloud).
  • Proven ability to design and implement RESTful APIs, OpenAPI/Swagger documentation, and API versioning strategies.
  • Solid understanding and practical experience with microservices architecture patterns (service discovery, circuit breakers, bulkheads, API gateway).
  • Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and ORMs (Hibernate/JPA), including schema design, indexing, and query optimization.
  • Experience with NoSQL databases and caching layers (Redis, Cassandra, MongoDB) and patterns for data partitioning and replication.
  • Experience with message brokers and event-driven design (Kafka, RabbitMQ, AWS SQS/SNS) and stream processing basics.
  • Strong unit, integration, and end-to-end testing skills using JUnit, Mockito, TestContainers, and testing frameworks.
  • Proficiency in containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes), including Helm, manifests, and service mesh familiarity (Istio/Linkerd) preferred.
  • Hands-on with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) — deploying services, managed DBs, IAM, networking, and serverless components where appropriate.
  • CI/CD pipeline design and automation experience (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI), artifact repositories, and release orchestration.
  • Observability tooling: structured logging (ELK/EFK), metrics (Prometheus), dashboards (Grafana), distributed tracing (Jaeger/Zipkin).
  • Familiarity with security best practices: OAuth2/OpenID Connect, JWT, encryption at rest/in transit, OWASP Top 10 and secure coding.
  • Source control workflows and branching strategies with Git (GitFlow, trunk-based development), pull requests, and code review discipline.
  • Performance and load testing tools (JMeter, Gatling) and profiling tools to diagnose memory leaks, thread contention, and GC issues.
  • Familiarity with build tools and dependency management (Maven, Gradle) and artifact/version management.

Soft Skills

  • Strong ownership and accountability for services from design through production operation.
  • Excellent communication skills—able to explain technical tradeoffs to product, QA, and non-engineering stakeholders.
  • Collaborative mindset and proven ability to work in cross-functional, agile teams.
  • Problem-solving orientation with a bias for pragmatic solutions and measurable outcomes.
  • Mentorship and coaching skills to help junior engineers grow and adopt best practices.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to balance feature development, technical debt, and production stability.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning mindset — stays current with Java ecosystem and cloud-native trends.
  • Attention to detail and a commitment to delivering high-quality, secure, and maintainable code.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field or equivalent proven industry experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Electrical/Computer Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8+ years building backend services in Java, depending on the level (Mid to Senior).

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of professional Java backend development experience, with at least 2 years focused on cloud-native microservices and containerized deployments.
  • Demonstrated track record of shipping production services, handling incident response, and mentoring others.
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