What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Backend Engineer (Java) - NYC Hybrid position at The Developer Link?
Senior Backend Engineer, Product
Location: New York City (hybrid — office 3 days/week, up to 2 remote)
About the Company
Our client is a mission-driven software business in the HealthTech space. They’re tackling real problems in senior living environments — designing modern systems that empower residents and caregivers alike.
The Role
They’re looking for an experienced backend engineer to join their engineering team as a senior individual contributor. You’ll own the design and build of scalable backend services for a new market-facing product. Expect to work with distributed services, relational and NoSQL stores, message queues, real-time pipelines, and APIs that need to perform reliably at scale.
Responsibilities
- Architect, implement and scale backend services based on Java (using frameworks like Spring Boot or Dropwizard).
- Design data models and persistence strategies across Postgres and NoSQL stores (e.g., DynamoDB or similar).
- Build and operate systems using message queues (SQS, Kafka, etc.) for asynchronous/event-driven workflows.
- Define, document and evolve REST APIs (OpenAPI) in close collaboration with front-end and infrastructure teams.
- Ensure services are performant, observable, fault-tolerant and ready for 24/7 production operation.
- Own and optimise CI/CD pipelines, builds (Gradle), containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes) and deployment.
- Mentor peers, perform design/code reviews and drive backend engineering best practices.
Must-Have Qualifications
- Strong Java backend engineering experience and familiarity with microservice frameworks (Spring Boot, Dropwizard).
- Proficiency with ORMs (Hibernate/JPA) and core persistence/data modelling.
- Solid understanding of service design, data modelling in distributed systems (Postgres NoSQL).
- Experience with queue/stream processing (SQS, Kafka or equivalent) and event-driven architecture.
- API design know-how: versioning, error handling, security, documentation (OpenAPI).
- Familiarity with CI/CD, containerisation (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), logging/monitoring/tracing.
- Proven ability to set patterns and standards, lead technical discussion and mentor others.
Preferred Skills
- Experience in multi-tenant SaaS environments.
- Background in high-throughput/low-latency systems.
- Familiarity with domain-driven design (DDD) or event sourcing.
- Exposure to cloud-native services (AWS, GCP).
What’s On Offer
- Competitive base salary plus equity or stock options.
- Full health, dental and vision coverage.
- Flexible “take-as-you-need” holiday policy, plus company holidays and winter break.
- In-office culture built around collaboration (office perk: lunches, snack bar, team events).
- Hybrid working: mostly office, with the option for up to 2 remote days/week.