Position Summary
We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to design, build, and maintain scalable backend services and RESTful APIs.
This is a fully backend-focused position with no frontend responsibilities. The ideal candidate has strong hands-on experience with Java 17, Spring Boot, and Hibernate and is comfortable contributing to design-first development workflows supported by AI-assisted engineering tools.
You will collaborate with Product, Design, DevOps, and Operations teams to deliver reliable backend solutions for both customer-facing and internal AutoNation applications.
Job Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain backend services and RESTful APIs using Java 17, Spring Boot, and Hibernate.
- Develop scalable and reliable solutions that support customer-facing and internal business applications.
- Participate in technical design and architecture discussions before implementation.
- Translate technical designs and business requirements into maintainable backend solutions.
- Use AI-assisted development tools to support code generation, implementation, testing, and engineering productivity.
- Review, validate, and improve AI-generated code to ensure quality, security, and maintainability.
- Write clean, testable, and well-documented code.
- Troubleshoot backend issues and contribute to application performance and reliability improvements.
- Collaborate with Product, Design, DevOps, and Operations throughout the software development lifecycle.
- Participate in code reviews and help establish backend engineering best practices.
- Develop and maintain scheduled or background processes when required, using tools such as Quartz.
Required Qualifications
- 5+ years of professional backend software development experience.
- Strong hands-on experience with Java, preferably Java 17.
- Strong hands-on experience with Spring Boot.
- Strong hands-on experience with Hibernate or JPA-based persistence.
- Proven experience designing and developing RESTful APIs.
- Strong understanding of object-oriented programming and software design principles.
- Experience building scalable, maintainable, and production-ready backend applications.
- Experience with automated testing, debugging, and code review practices.
- Ability to participate in technical design discussions and translate designs into working solutions.
- Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Interest in and willingness to use AI-assisted development tools as part of the engineering workflow.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience developing scheduled or background jobs using Quartz or similar libraries.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools such as Kiro or comparable coding assistants.
- Experience working in design-first or specification-driven development environments.
- Familiarity with cloud-hosted applications. Experience with AWS, GCP, or another cloud platform is acceptable, but deep cloud infrastructure expertise is not required.
- Experience supporting platforms related to automotive services, financing, e-commerce, or other transaction-based products.
AI-Assisted Development
The team follows a design-first development approach. Engineers create and refine the technical design before using AI agents to assist with implementation. The engineering team then reviews, validates, and improves the generated code.
Previous experience with Kiro is not required, but candidates should demonstrate genuine interest in adopting AI-assisted development tools and the ability to critically review AI-generated solutions.