Principal Al Engineer - Java Full Stack

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Backend Engineer with strong hands-on expertise in Java and Python to design, build, and scale enterprise-grade talent management platforms.
In this role, you will act as a technical leader-owning backend architecture, driving engineering excellence, and collaborating closely with product, data, and platform teams to deliver reliable, scalable, and high-performance systems.

In this role you will...

• Design, develop, and optimize high-performance backend services using Java and Python
• Lead the design and implementation of microservices-based architectures
• Build and maintain RESTful APIs, data pipelines, and event-driven systems
• Ensure system scalability, reliability, security, and performance
• Collaborate with product, frontend, data, and platform teams to translate business needs into technical solutions
• Drive backend best practices around code quality, testing, observability, and security
• Mentor and review code for senior and mid-level engineers
• Participate in architectural reviews and influence long-term platform strategy
• Support production systems through monitoring, troubleshooting, and performance tuning

• Python 3.11+ - async/await, type hints, dataclasses
• FastAPI & Pydantic - API development, request/response validation, OpenAPI specifications
• SQLAlchemy - ORM usage, async queries, Alembic migrations
• Async Programming - asyncio, async DB access, non-blocking I/O
• Testing - pytest, async testing patterns, mocks, fixtures

• Java 17 / 21 - modern Java features, records, pattern matching, virtual threads
• Spring Boot 3.x - REST APIs, validation, Actuator, configuration management
• Spring Data JPA - repositories, custom queries, entity relationships
• Spring Security - JWT, OAuth2, authentication and authorization
• Testing - JUnit 5, Mockito, integration testing, Testcontainers

• REST APIs - API-first design, OpenAPI/Swagger documentation
• Microservices - service decomposition, inter-service communication
• Data Pipelines & Events - asynchronous processing, messaging patterns
• Database Design - relational databases, schema design, performance tuning

• Docker - containerization, multi-stage builds
• Build Tools
• Maven (Java)
• Pants / pip / poetry (Python ecosystem)
• AWS - EKS, ECR, RDS
• Cloud-Native Patterns - scalable deployments, resilience, fault tolerance

• CI/CD - GitHub Actions, automated testing and deployments
• Monitoring & Observability - logging, metrics, tracing, error tracking
• Version Control - Git, pull requests, code reviews
• Collaboration - working effectively in cross-functional agile teams

• Experience with event-driven systems (Kafka, SNS/SQS, etc.)
• Exposure to GraphQL or gRPC
• Experience building SaaS platforms with multi-tenant architectures
• Knowledge of security best practices and compliance requirements
• Familiarity with AI/ML data pipelines or analytics platforms