Backend Java Engineer – Kafka​/Distributed Systems

Backend Java Engineer – Kafka / Distributed Systems

Location: Vancouver, BC - Hybrid (3 Days WFO)

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize backend services handling high-volume data flows with strict performance and reliability requirements.

• Develop Java-based components using modern frameworks (Spring/Spring Boot or equivalent).

• Build and maintain asynchronous and event-driven workflows using messaging systems such as MQ/Kafka/RabbitMQ.

• Implement performance tuning, profiling, and observability to support sub-second latency and 99.99% availability goals.

• Drive solutioning and system designs for new features, integrations, and platform enhancements across distributed systems.

• Ensure service robustness through automated testing (unit, integration, load tests) and CI/CD workflows.

• Apply secure-by-design principles, including threat modeling, safe data handling, API hardening, and least-privilege access.

• Implement and support authentication and authorization patterns (e.g., OAuth2, mTLS, JWT, service-to-service auth).

• Participate in architecture reviews, offering technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers.

• Diagnose and resolve complex production issues across infrastructure, code, and messaging layers.

• Enhance platform reliability via improved logging, monitoring, alerting, and operational tooling.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on backend development experience in large-scale, high-throughput environments.

• Strong proficiency in Java (Java 8+, multithreading, concurrency libraries, performance optimization).

• Solid understanding of Linux fundamentals (filesystem, networking basics, shell operations, performance tools).

• Extensive experience with Message Queue systems (IBM MQ, Kafka, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, etc.).

• Deep knowledge of asynchronous programming, non-blocking IO patterns, and event-driven system design.

• Good understanding of modern network protocols, including:

• gRPC (service-to-service communication, protobuf, streaming patterns)

• HTTP/2 (multiplexing, header compression, flow control, performance benefits)

• Experience implementing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and Dev Ops tooling, including:

• Jenkins

• Chef Infra / Chef Habitat

• Terraform

• PCF CLI

• Demonstrated ability to design scalable system architectures and evaluate design trade-offs.

• Basic understanding of Authentication/Authorization concepts and secure communication patterns.

• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) is an asset.

• Excellent debugging, problem-solving, and performance-profiling skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services, real-time scoring, risk systems, or other low-latency domains.

• Exposure to observability stacks (Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK).

• Knowledge of Dev Ops practices, automation, and additional IaC tools.

• Hands-on understanding of reliability engineering (circuit breakers, retries, backpressure, failover strategies).

• Ability to lead complex technical initiatives and drive cross-team alignment.

What We Look For

• A strong ownership mindset with a passion for delivering secure, high-quality, and resilient services.

• Ability to influence architecture, mentor engineers, and uplift engineering standards.

• Strong communication skills and the ability to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.