Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Java Web Developer

🎯 Role Definition

We are seeking a results-driven Java Web Developer to design, build, and maintain enterprise-grade web applications and microservices. The ideal candidate combines deep Java backend expertise with practical experience in Spring Boot, REST API design, cloud-native deployment, and modern CI/CD pipelines. This role requires strong collaboration with product, QA, and DevOps teams to deliver high-quality, maintainable code that meets business objectives and operational requirements.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Java Developer
Backend Developer
Web Application Developer

Advancement To:

Senior Java Web Developer
Lead Backend Engineer
Software Architect
Engineering Manager

Lateral Moves:

Full‑Stack Developer
DevOps / Platform Engineer
Cloud Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Design, implement, and maintain scalable Java-based web applications and microservices using Spring Boot, Spring MVC, and Spring Cloud, ensuring adherence to SOLID principles and clean architecture patterns.
Develop well-defined RESTful APIs and API contracts, including input validation, error handling, versioning, and comprehensive OpenAPI/Swagger documentation to enable easy integration and consumption.
Build robust data access layers with JPA/Hibernate (or equivalent), writing efficient queries, optimizing ORM mappings, and designing schema changes in collaboration with DBAs for RDBMS systems such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Oracle.
Implement asynchronous processing and event-driven architectures using message brokers like Apache Kafka or RabbitMQ to decouple services and improve resilience under load.
Write comprehensive unit, integration, and contract tests using JUnit, Mockito, Testcontainers, and other testing frameworks to ensure code quality and reduce regression risks.
Lead code reviews and collaborate on pull requests to enforce coding standards, maintainability, and security best practices while mentoring junior engineers on design and implementation choices.
Design and implement CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or CircleCI) for automated build, test, and deployment workflows that reduce manual effort and accelerate release cadence.
Containerize applications with Docker and manage deployments to Kubernetes clusters (EKS/GKE/AKS), optimizing resource usage, readiness/liveness probes, and deployment strategies (rolling, canary, blue-green).
Apply performance tuning and profiling techniques (JVM tuning, garbage collection, thread pools) to identify bottlenecks and improve request throughput and latency for high-traffic services.
Implement security controls for web applications including authentication/authorization (OAuth2, JWT, SSO), input sanitization, secure configuration management, and compliance with OWASP top 10 mitigations.
Collaborate with frontend teams (React, Angular, Vue) to design API contracts, support CORS policies, and perform end-to-end integration testing to deliver cohesive user experiences.
Troubleshoot and resolve production incidents, perform root cause analysis, implement hotfixes when necessary, and drive long-term remediation to prevent recurrence.
Participate in requirement analysis and translate business needs into technical specifications, estimates, and implementation plans while balancing scope, quality, and delivery timelines.
Drive observability by instrumenting applications with structured logging, distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry/Jaeger), and metrics collection (Prometheus/Grafana) to proactively detect and diagnose issues.
Manage configuration and secrets securely using vaults or cloud-native secret stores and ensure environment-specific configuration is immutable and auditable.
Refactor and modernize legacy Java codebases to reduce technical debt, improve modularity, and adopt microservices or modular monolith approaches where appropriate.
Implement caching strategies (Redis, Memcached) and CDN integration to reduce backend load and improve application responsiveness for end users.
Collaborate with Product Owners and QA to define acceptance criteria and participate in agile ceremonies (planning, stand-ups, retrospectives) to ensure predictable delivery.
Estimate tasks, track progress against sprint goals, and communicate risks and dependencies to stakeholders in a timely and transparent manner.
Maintain comprehensive technical documentation, runbooks, and on-call handovers to support operational readiness and continuous knowledge sharing across the team.
Design and execute prototypes or proof-of-concepts for new technologies or architecture changes that align with product strategy and technical roadmap.
Ensure accessibility, internationalization (i18n), and localization concerns are addressed when APIs or backend logic influence user-facing features.
Collaborate with security, compliance, and platform teams to support audits, vulnerability scanning, and implement remediation plans for identified issues.
Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and mentoring programs to grow the team’s technical capability and maintain a healthy engineering culture.

Secondary Functions

Provide on-call support and participate in incident management rotation to restore service availability while continuously improving runbooks and escalation procedures.
Support cross-functional initiatives such as developer tooling, template services, and shared libraries to streamline development and ensure consistency across projects.
Assist in capacity planning and cost optimization efforts for cloud resources, suggesting right-sizing and autoscaling strategies to control spend.
Help define and enforce API lifecycle policies including deprecation timelines, backward compatibility rules, and version migration plans.
Evaluate third-party libraries and SaaS vendors, performing security and performance assessments before adoption.
Run architecture review sessions and design workshops to align teams on common patterns and reusable components.
Partner with QA to improve test automation coverage and reduce time-to-feedback for critical business flows.
Provide performance dashboards and SLAs for stakeholders, summarizing system health and proposing roadmap items to improve reliability.
Lead knowledge-sharing sessions, brown-bags, and internal training on Java best practices, new frameworks, and cloud-native patterns.
Contribute to open-source initiatives, internal SDKs, or platform improvements that strengthen the broader engineering ecosystem.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expert proficiency in Java (Java 8, 11, or 17) with strong understanding of JVM internals, memory management, and concurrency.
Deep experience with Spring ecosystem: Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Spring Security, Spring Data, and Spring Cloud components.
Proven ability designing and implementing RESTful APIs and microservices architectures, including API documentation (OpenAPI/Swagger).
Strong SQL skills and experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle) plus familiarity with NoSQL (MongoDB, Cassandra) where applicable.
ORM experience with JPA/Hibernate and ability to optimize queries and mappings for performance and scalability.
Hands-on experience with message brokers and asynchronous processing (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS).
Containerization with Docker and orchestration experience deploying to Kubernetes (EKS/GKE/AKS) including helm charts or Kubernetes manifests.
CI/CD tooling and automation: Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or equivalent; experience automating build/test/deploy pipelines.
Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, or Azure) including services for compute, storage, databases, IAM, and managed Kubernetes.
Unit and integration testing expertise using JUnit, Mockito, Testcontainers, and test automation strategies for backend services.
Familiarity with observability tooling: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK stack, OpenTelemetry, Jaeger/Zipkin for tracing.
Security best practices: OAuth2/OpenID Connect, JWT, secure coding patterns, dependency vulnerability scanning (Snyk, Dependabot).
Build tools and dependency management: Maven and/or Gradle with multi-module project experience.
Version control with Git and branching strategies (GitFlow, trunk-based development).
Performance profiling and tuning tools (JVM profilers, GC logs analysis) to diagnose production issues.

Soft Skills

Excellent verbal and written communication skills to convey technical concepts clearly to engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
Strong problem-solving mindset with an emphasis on root cause analysis and delivering durable solutions.
Collaborative team player who can work across product, QA, DevOps, and business teams to achieve shared goals.
Ownership and accountability for delivering production-quality software and supporting it in live environments.
Ability to mentor and coach junior engineers, provide constructive feedback, and foster continuous learning.
Adaptable to changing priorities and able to balance multiple concurrent projects with competing deadlines.
Customer-focused orientation: translate user needs into technical requirements and pragmatic solutions.
Good organizational skills for maintaining documentation, tickets, and sprint commitments.

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, Software Engineering, or related field or equivalent industry certifications.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Software Engineering
Information Systems
Computer Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years of professional experience building Java web applications and services.

Preferred: 5+ years experience in backend or full-stack roles with demonstrable experience in Spring Boot, microservices, cloud-native deployment, CI/CD pipelines, and production system ownership. Prior experience in high-throughput or high-availability systems, and mentoring or leading small engineering teams is a plus.