Senior Software Engineer, AI-Augmented Backend

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California, +5 more states.

📋 Description

• Take charge of designing and implementing intricate backend services using Java and Spring Boot, overseeing everything from architecture to production deployment and operational management.

• Lead the gradual transition of legacy functionalities to RESTful services utilizing the Strangler pattern.

• Create event-driven data flows (CDC pipelines, schema evolution, idempotent consumers) that maintain consistency across distributed systems under load.

• Make and document significant architectural decisions: including API contracts, data models, consistency and transactional boundaries, failure modes, and rollback strategies.

• Engage in specification-driven development: establish clear, machine-readable contracts and specifications (e.g., OpenAPI, schema definitions, RFC 9457 problem formats) prior to implementation, ensuring designs are clear, reviewable, and usable by both humans and AI agents.

• Utilize AI-assisted development tools effectively and responsibly—leveraging coding assistants and agentic workflows to accelerate delivery while maintaining ownership over correctness, review, and the security implications of generated code.

• Ensure service availability and reliability: design for high availability, define and uphold SLOs/error budgets, plan for graceful degradation and failover, and participate in on-call rotations to keep critical payment processes functioning smoothly.

• Integrate observability from the outset rather than as an afterthought—instrument services with metrics, distributed tracing, and structured logging (OpenTelemetry / Micrometer), using this telemetry to inform alerting, SLOs, and incident diagnosis.

• Set and elevate the standards for code quality, testing, and operational readiness through code reviews, design reviews, and technical mentorship of fellow engineers.

• Develop for a payments environment: handle sensitive cardholder data with care, design with PCI DSS requirements in mind, and incorporate audit logging and least-privilege access from the outset.

• Identify and resolve performance and reliability challenges across the stack—focusing on query optimization, caching strategies, indexing, connection management, and latency under real production conditions.

• Collaborate with product, platform, and other engineering teams to break down large initiatives into manageable, shippable increments.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 7 years of professional software engineering experience.

• Extensive expertise in Java and the Spring / Spring Boot ecosystem.

• Strong proficiency with relational databases—data modeling, query optimization, indexing, and transaction management.

• Proven experience in designing and evolving RESTful APIs (versioning, error semantics, idempotency, backward compatibility).

• Hands-on experience with distributed and/or event-driven systems (e.g., Kafka or similar messaging/streaming platforms).

• Solid understanding of system design: capable of reasoning about consistency, fault tolerance, scalability, and operational trade-offs, and effectively communicating those trade-offs.

• Strong observability skills—able to instrument services with metrics, distributed tracing, and structured logging using OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Grafana, and utilize that telemetry for defining alerts, diagnosing incidents, and understanding production behavior.

• Experience in operating high-availability services: defining and achieving SLOs, designing for failover and graceful degradation, and supporting production systems through on-call responsibilities.

• Comfort with specification-driven development—designing against explicit contracts (OpenAPI, schemas, well-defined error formats) prior to coding.

• Effective and judicious use of AI-assisted development tools (spec-driven development, skills), with clear accountability for the correctness, quality, and security of the produced code.

• A demonstrated security mindset—thinking about data protection, safe credential handling, and injection/input-validation risks as a default practice.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to influence technical direction across a team without formal authority.

• Familiarity with Domain-Driven Design (aggregates, bounded contexts, application services).

• Experience with AWS and Kubernetes (EKS), HashiCorp Vault, and Redis-compatible caching at scale.

• Must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.

🏝️ Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision insurance.

• Retirement savings plan.

• Paid time off.

• Health savings account.

• Flexible spending accounts.

• Life insurance.

• Disability insurance.

• Tuition reimbursement.

• Additional benefits.