Senior/Lead Java Engineer

About the Company and Role
We are seeking a Senior/Lead Java Engineer to join a greenfield brokerage accounting platform project.
This role is focused on building backend systems where reliability, performance, and operational stability are critical from day one. The engineer joining the team will participate in key technical decisions, review code, help shape engineering standards, and become one of the project's main technical contributors.
Our client is a financial company operating in the investment and brokerage domain. The company is building its own brokerage accounting ecosystem from scratch - covering the full operational cycle from client onboarding and transaction processing to integrations with trading platforms and financial infrastructure providers.
The project is being developed together with an internal engineering team and external contractors.
Tech Stack: Java 17/21; Spring Boot/Spring Framework (Core, Data, Security); Hibernate/JPA; PostgreSQL; Kafka/RabbitMQ; Redis; Docker; Kubernetes; GitLab CI/GitHub Actions/Jenkins; Prometheus; OpenTelemetry; ELK/Loki; REST; gRPC.
Location: Almaty, Kazakhstan (full-time, office-based). Hybrid format may be discussed after the launch of the key project stages.
We are offering:
Salary: 1,800,000 - 2,000,000 KZT net;
Opportunity to join a greenfield fintech project at an early stage;
Direct influence on technical decisions and system design;
Work on a platform designed for tens of thousands of transactions and operations per hour;
High level of ownership and engineering autonomy;
Close collaboration with business, infrastructure, and product teams.
Interview Process:
HR screening (30-40 minutes);
Technical interview with Head of Development (online);
Final interview with Head of Development (offline);
Job offer.
What kind of qualifications we are looking for:
Technologies
Strong commercial experience with Java 17/21;
Deep understanding of JVM internals: memory management, GC, multithreading, profiling;
Solid experience with Spring Boot/Spring Framework (Core, Data, Security);
Hibernate/JPA and ability to work with native SQL when necessary;
Strong PostgreSQL expertise: indexing, transactions, locks, query optimization, EXPLAIN;
Experience with Kafka or RabbitMQ, including consumer groups, partitioning, and delivery guarantees;
Experience with Redis, caching strategies, and cache invalidation approaches;
Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.
Architecture and High Load
Experience designing microservices or modular monolith architectures;
Experience defining service boundaries and working with bounded contexts;
Understanding of distributed systems patterns: Saga, Outbox, Circuit Breaker, idempotency, backpressure;
Experience building scalable high-load systems with horizontal scaling, sharding, and low-latency requirements;
Experience working with financial calculations and transactional systems where precision, reconciliation, and auditability matter;
Understanding why financial operations should rely on deterministic approaches such as BigDecimal rather than floating-point calculations.
Integrations
Experience designing REST/gRPC APIs;
Understanding of versioning and idempotent API design principles;
Experience with event-driven integrations and message queues;
Ability to quickly understand external financial protocols and integrations.
Observability and Reliability
Experience with metrics, tracing, and centralized logging tools such as Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, ELK, or Loki;
Understanding of security fundamentals: OAuth2/JWT, encryption, OWASP principles.
Team Lead Responsibilities
Experience conducting code reviews with focus on architecture, maintainability, and engineering quality;
Experience mentoring developers;
Good understanding of SOLID principles and pragmatic use of design patterns;
Good testing practices with JUnit 5, Mockito, and Testcontainers;
Ability to decompose complex technical tasks and explain technical decisions clearly;
Ability to explain and defend technical decisions in discussions with engineering and business stakeholders.
Responsibilities:
Design and evolve the backend architecture of a brokerage accounting system;
Build core backend modules in Java;
Participate in key technical decisions related to scalability, performance, and fault tolerance;
Work on high-load services with low-latency requirements;
Participate in system decomposition and service boundary definition;
Review code with focus on architecture, maintainability, and long-term system evolution;
Solve production and infrastructure-related challenges together with the engineering team;
Participate in production releases and operational improvements;
Share expertise and act as a technical reference point for other developers;
Mentor junior and middle engineers.
Nice to have Requirements:
Experience in fintech, banking, payment systems, brokerage, or trading platforms;
Experience with Kotlin;
Experience migrating monolithic systems to microservices;
Familiarity with financial protocols such as FIX or ISO 20022.
Interested in building a brokerage platform from scratch instead of maintaining another legacy system?
Want to influence key technical decisions and work on infrastructure where reliability and performance directly affect the business?