Lead Java Engineer – Spring Boot, Kafka & GCP

Lead Java Engineer – Spring Boot, Kafka & GCP

Job Reference Number: PG1

Our client, a leading global supplier for IT services, requires an experienced Lead Java Engineer to be based at their client’s office in London or Edinburgh, UK.

This is a hybrid role – you can work remotely in the UK and attend the London or Edinburgh office 2 days per week.

This is a 12+ month temporary contract to start asap

Day rate: Competitive Market rate

The Role:

As a Lead Engineer, you will own the onshore technical delivery of Java backend services within a leading UK banking environment. You will translate requirements into technical designs and implementation plans, guide engineering teams through build, test and release, and maintain delivery controls across quality, security, performance and operability. You will work with client, product, architecture, DevOps, quality engineering and offshore teams to deliver scalable, secure and supportable services.

Key Responsibilities

• Own onshore technical delivery for Java backend services, coordinating with client, product, architecture and offshore teams.
• Design and develop scalable, secure APIs and microservices using Java, Spring Boot, REST and cloud-native patterns.
• Translate business and functional requirements into technical designs, estimates, delivery plans and engineering backlogs.
• Lead impact assessments, solution discussions, code reviews and technical governance throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Maintain engineering quality through unit testing, BDD/TDD, CI/CD controls, security, performance and observability practices.
• Guide engineers on implementation standards, reusable patterns, defect prevention and adherence to agreed designs.
• Coordinate integration, release planning, defect triage, production readiness and ongoing application support.
• Work with product owners, architects, DevOps, quality engineering and service teams to manage dependencies and delivery outcomes.
• Identify technical risks, dependencies and blockers early, and communicate actions and decisions to stakeholders.
• Support documentation, knowledge transfer and handover to engineering, operations and support teams.

Key Requirements

Essential:

• Strong hands-on backend engineering experience with Java 8+, Spring, Spring Boot, REST APIs and microservices.
• Experience designing and delivering services using Kafka and event-driven integration patterns.
• Experience with Docker, Helm, Kubernetes configuration and cloud-native deployment practices.
• Working experience with Google Cloud Platform and cloud-based application deployment.
• Strong knowledge of BDD/TDD, JUnit and automated unit-testing practices.
• Experience with CI/CD and engineering tools such as Jenkins, Git, SonarQube and Docker.
• Good understanding of API gateways, API security, integration patterns and service-to-service communication.
• Good understanding of the end-to-end software development lifecycle, including release and production-readiness controls.
• Agile delivery experience using Scrum, Jira and Confluence across distributed teams.
• Effective client-facing communication, technical leadership and collaboration across multi-disciplinary teams.

Desirable:

• Experience leading onshore and offshore engineering delivery within banking or financial services.
• Knowledge of scalability, resilience, performance, observability and secure coding for distributed services.
• Experience supporting production services, incident resolution, defect triage and root-cause analysis.
• Familiarity with cloud monitoring, logging and operational support practices.
• Understanding of banking integration, payments, cards or customer-servicing platforms.