About Us:
As a Fortune 50 company with more than 4000,000 team members worldwide, Target is an iconic brand and one of America's leading retailers.
Working at Target means the opportunity to help all families discover the joy of everyday life. Caring for our communities is woven into who we are, and we invest in the places we collectively live, work and play. We prioritize relationships, fuel and develop talent by creating growth opportunities, and succeed as one Target team. At our core, our purpose is ingrained in who we are, what we value, and how we work. It’s how we care, grow, and win together.
Position Overview
We are looking for a Backend Engineer with a strong foundation in Java and distributed systems to join our team. In this role, you will design, build, and operate scalable backend services using Spring Boot and modern cloud-native technologies.
You will work closely with product, architecture, and platform teams to deliver reliable, high-performance systems and take ownership of services in production.
Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.
Responsibilities:
Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services using Java and Spring Boot
Contribute to system design discussions and translate requirements into working solutions
Build reliable and resilient systems with a focus on performance, scalability, and fault tolerance
Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code adhering to engineering best practices
Troubleshoot production issues, identify root causes, and implement fixes with minimal impact
Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and platform teams to deliver features end-to-end
Participate in code reviews and contribute to improving engineering standards
Work with DevOps teams to support CI/CD pipelines and cloud deployments (Kubernetes)
Contribute to technical documentation, design decisions, and operational runbooks
Actively participate in Agile ceremonies and deliver high-quality work within sprint timelines
Take ownership of services in production, ensuring reliability, latency, and SLA adherence
About You:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
~3+ years of professional software development experience
Strong proficiency in Java and good working knowledge of Spring Boot
Experience building RESTful APIs and backend services
Familiarity with microservices architecture and distributed systems fundamentals
Hands-on experience with messaging systems (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ)
Working knowledge of relational databases (MySQL/Postgres) and basic NoSQL systems (Redis, MongoDB)
Exposure to cloud-native environments (Docker, Kubernetes)
Familiarity with engineering practices: Git, CI/CD, and automated testing
Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work in a collaborative environment
Experience owning features or services from development through production deployment
Nice to have:
Exposure to event-driven architectures or streaming systems
Experience working on high-scale or low-latency systems
Familiarity with observability tools (monitoring, logging, tracing)
Exposure to big data technologies (Spark, Hadoop)
Familiarity with AI-assisted developer tools (e.g., Copilot, ChatGPT)
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
- Approximately 3+ years of professional software development experience
- Strong proficiency in Java
- Working knowledge of Spring Boot
- Experience building RESTful APIs and backend services
- Familiarity with microservices architecture and distributed systems fundamentals
- Hands-on experience with messaging systems (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ)
- Working knowledge of relational databases (MySQL/Postgres) and basic NoSQL systems (Redis, MongoDB)
- Exposure to cloud-native environments (Docker, Kubernetes)
- Familiarity with engineering practices: Git, CI/CD, and automated testing
- Experience owning features or services from development through production deployment
- Exposure to event-driven architectures or streaming systems
- Experience working on high-scale or low-latency systems
- Familiarity with observability tools (monitoring, logging, tracing)
- Exposure to big data technologies (Spark, Hadoop)
- Familiarity with AI-assisted developer tools (e.g., Copilot, ChatGPT)
Target Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Target and has not been reviewed or approved by Target.
-
Healthcare Strength — Health benefits are accessible to hourly team members at relatively low hour thresholds and include no‑cost, 24/7 virtual medical care and expanded mental‑health support. This breadth is positioned as a relative strength compared to typical retail offerings.
-
Retirement Support — Retirement programs include a dollar‑for‑dollar 401(k) match with immediate vesting and options like Roth 401(k) and stock purchase. These features strengthen long‑term savings for a wide range of roles.
-
Parental & Family Support — Family support includes paid family leave, backup care, and reimbursements for adoption and surrogacy. These resources complement paid time off and holidays for eligible team members.
Target Insights
What We Do
Target is an American retailing company providing access to a wide selection of products such as furniture, electronics, toys, and more. Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of America’s leading retailers. We make Target our guests’ preferred shopping destination by offering outstanding value, inspiration, innovation and an exceptional guest experience that no other retailer can deliver. Target is committed to responsible corporate citizenship, ethical business practices, environmental stewardship and generous community support. Since 1946, we have given 5 percent of our profits back to our communities. Our goal is to work as one team to fulfill our unique brand promise to our guests, wherever and whenever they choose to shop.
