Senior Back-End Engineer (Java)
remotepeople • APAC or China (Remote)
Posted: July 20, 2026
Job Description
Overview
We're seeking an experienced Senior Back-End Engineer who combines strong architectural judgment with a high-ownership mindset and a genuine drive to operate at the frontier of modern engineering practices.
What you'll be doing
You'll join one of our cross-functional squads — working alongside a Product Manager, a Designer, Front-End, Back-End and QA Engineers — building the world's best Employer of Record platform. We are a remote-first team spread across Asia and Europe, so clear async communication and cross-timezone collaboration are part of how we work every day. You'll own meaningful pieces of the product end-to-end, from design to rollout, with the autonomy and responsibility to make technical decisions and the expectation to deliver value at speed without compromising quality. AI tooling is a first-class part of how we work: you'll leverage it to move faster, and you'll be the quality bar on everything that ships.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop and document fast, secure and easy-to-use APIs consumed by both front-end and back-end applications
- Build effective integrations with other applications and third-party software
- Own the entire implementation cycle from design to rollout
- Leverage AI coding tools (e.g. Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) as a core part of your development workflow to accelerate implementation
- Act as the quality gate on AI-assisted development: review, validate and refactor generated code to ensure it meets architecture, security and maintainability standards
- Design and orchestrate lightweight automation and agent workflows to eliminate repetitive engineering tasks (test generation, data migrations, boilerplate, monitoring scripts)
- Contribute to the squad's adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices and share learnings across the Back-End Chapter
- Contribute to requirements review and work closely with Product Manager to design and plan new features
- Participate in the Back-End Engineering Chapter and contribute to global architecture decisions
Requirements
- Minimum of 7 years in a Software Development role
- Strong architectural judgment and code quality ownership — the ability to design good systems, not just write good code
- Solid command of Java and Spring Boot
- Demonstrated, hands-on experience using AI coding assistants in a production engineering context — a practiced workflow, not just familiarity
- Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code for correctness, security, and maintainability
- Experience designing and implementing micro-services
- Knowledge of API design with REST, gRPC, GraphQL and API documentation with OpenAPI/Swagger
- Experience with various data store, streaming and caching solutions (SQL and NoSQL databases, Redis, MQ, Kafka, Elasticsearch)
- Ability to draw and document technical solutions prior to implementation
- Ability to communicate effectively in a remote environment — clear written communication, reliable async collaboration
Preferred Skills
- Experience decomposing complex tasks into agent-friendly subtasks, or building and configuring simple automation pipelines
- TDD by default — especially important in an AI-assisted workflow where tests are the primary safety net on generated code
- Experience working on a SaaS platform, or at least a custom-built product
- Proven knowledge of Online Payment, Payroll or Invoicing domains
- Some experience with Python
- Strong sense of security and application performance
- Strive to solve complex problems with simple, effective solutions
- Self-directed and self-improving: you manage your own time, define your own growth path, and hold yourself to a high bar without waiting to be told
Additional Content
Overview
We're seeking an experienced Senior Back-End Engineer who combines strong architectural judgment with a high-ownership mindset and a genuine drive to operate at the frontier of modern engineering practices.
What you'll be doing
You'll join one of our cross-functional squads — working alongside a Product Manager, a Designer, Front-End, Back-End and QA Engineers — building the world's best Employer of Record platform. We are a remote-first team spread across Asia and Europe, so clear async communication and cross-timezone collaboration are part of how we work every day. You'll own meaningful pieces of the product end-to-end, from design to rollout, with the autonomy and responsibility to make technical decisions and the expectation to deliver value at speed without compromising quality. AI tooling is a first-class part of how we work: you'll leverage it to move faster, and you'll be the quality bar on everything that ships.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop and document fast, secure and easy-to-use APIs consumed by both front-end and back-end applications
- Build effective integrations with other applications and third-party software
- Own the entire implementation cycle from design to rollout
- Leverage AI coding tools (e.g. Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) as a core part of your development workflow to accelerate implementation
- Act as the quality gate on AI-assisted development: review, validate and refactor generated code to ensure it meets architecture, security and maintainability standards
- Design and orchestrate lightweight automation and agent workflows to eliminate repetitive engineering tasks (test generation, data migrations, boilerplate, monitoring scripts)
- Contribute to the squad's adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices and share learnings across the Back-End Chapter
- Contribute to requirements review and work closely with Product Manager to design and plan new features
- Participate in the Back-End Engineering Chapter and contribute to global architecture decisions
Requirements
- Minimum of 7 years in a Software Development role
- Strong architectural judgment and code quality ownership — the ability to design good systems, not just write good code
- Solid command of Java and Spring Boot
- Demonstrated, hands-on experience using AI coding assistants in a production engineering context — a practiced workflow, not just familiarity
- Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated code for correctness, security, and maintainability
- Experience designing and implementing micro-services
- Knowledge of API design with REST, gRPC, GraphQL and API documentation with OpenAPI/Swagger
- Experience with various data store, streaming and caching solutions (SQL and NoSQL databases, Redis, MQ, Kafka, Elasticsearch)
- Ability to draw and document technical solutions prior to implementation
- Ability to communicate effectively in a remote environment — clear written communication, reliable async collaboration
Preferred Skills
- Experience decomposing complex tasks into agent-friendly subtasks, or building and configuring simple automation pipelines
- TDD by default — especially important in an AI-assisted workflow where tests are the primary safety net on generated code
- Experience working on a SaaS platform, or at least a custom-built product
- Proven knowledge of Online Payment, Payroll or Invoicing domains
- Some experience with Python
- Strong sense of security and application performance
- Strive to solve complex problems with simple, effective solutions
- Self-directed and self-improving: you manage your own time, define your own growth path, and hold yourself to a high bar without waiting to be told