Java Backend Engineer (Kafka, Kubernetes, AWS, Testing) (Chicago)

***We are unable to sponsor as this is a permanent full-time role***

***Hybrid, 3 days onsite, 2 days remote***

A highly regulated financial firm is looking for a Java Backend Engineer (Kafka, AWS, Testing). This engineer will need a experienced background using Core Java, AWS, Kafka, testing with Junit/SonarQube, and Kubernetes.

Responsibilities:

• Design and write clean, maintainable, well-tested Java code, and lead debugging and root-cause analysis of complex framework and integration issues.
• Lead the design, development and enhancement of automation testing framework features, and drive adoption by testing teams through guidance, documentation and enablement.
• Lead code reviews, uphold engineering standards and best practices, and drive continuous improvement of the codebase and delivery practices.
• Champion secure software delivery by integrating and acting on findings from SonarQube, Snyk, Sysdig, Veracode, and Black Duck, and partner with security teams to remediate vulnerabilities.
• Own and improve CI/CD automation using Jenkins and containerized deployment with Docker, Harness, and Rancher, focusing on reliability, speed and repeatability.
• Serve as an escalation point for testing teams, resolving complex automation framework issues and identifying recurring problems to eliminate at the source.

Qualifications:

• BS degree in Computer Science or a similar technical field required; advanced degree or equivalent experience preferred
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with production systems, including distributed systems and backend microservice development, with a track record of delivering complex solutions with minimal supervision.
• Experience with distributed computing frameworks such as Kafka Streaming and message queues, including designing for scale, resilience and fault tolerance.
• Strong experience in API development, SQL databases, and data storage such as S3.
• Strong working knowledge of CI/CD, DevOps tools, Git, and test automation frameworks, with experience improving pipelines and release processes.
• Deep understanding of OOP, microservices architecture, REST APIs, and Java 8+ features, with the ability to apply design patterns and make sound architectural trade-offs.
• Advanced Java programming expertise including object-oriented design, concurrency and multithreading, performance tuning, and substantial experience with Spring Boot.
• Strong working knowledge of Kafka including producers, consumers, topics, partitioning and delivery semantics; experience with message serialization formats such as Protobuf or Avro and schema governance patterns.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services, especially S3, and an understanding of cloud-based design, security and cost considerations.
• Ability to write and optimize analytical SQL queries for relational database systems such as PostgreSQL.
• Proficient with Git workflows including branching strategies, pull requests, and code review; hands-on experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins or similar orchestration platforms.
• Practical experience with AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code for code generation, refactoring, unit tests, and documentation, and the judgment to apply them in a disciplined engineering environment and coach others to do the same.