The Role
Design, build, and operate Java/Spring Boot services and event-driven systems using Kafka or RabbitMQ. Integrate REST, SOAP/XML, partner, and financial systems; manage databases, testing, security, observability, documentation, and CI/CD. Review code, make architecture decisions, mentor engineers, and lead technical projects. Full-stack engineers also develop Angular and TypeScript features. Fintech experience and additional technologies such as Kotlin, Avro, and Protocol Buffers are beneficial.
Summary Generated by Built In
About the role
You will support and build Watu, a leading asset financier focused on mobility and connectivity. Watu provides financing for motorcycles, three-wheelers and smartphones across multiple markets, through systems built for scale, reliability and long-term use.
What you'll do
- Design, build, and run Java/Spring Boot services in production, from API contract to monitoring.
- Make architecture decisions and document them in ADRs so the reasoning outlives the conversation.
- Build reliable event-driven flows on Kafka or RabbitMQ, designing for retries, duplicates, and partial failure.
- Integrate with partners and financial institutions, including legacy SOAP/XML services.
- Review pull requests for design, maintainability, performance, and test coverage, not just style.
- Own the documentation for what you build: READMEs, runbooks, API specs.
- Mentor other engineers and take technical lead on projects.
- Full-stack track: build and maintain Angular front-end features end to end.
What you need
- 5+ years of professional Java, including at least 3 years making design decisions on production systems.
- Deep Spring Boot experience: dependency injection, Spring Security, Spring Data, transaction management, and testing.
- Solid REST API design: versioning, error handling, idempotency, pagination, and OpenAPI documentation.
- Strong relational database skills (PostgreSQL or MySQL): schema design, indexing, query optimization, and JPA/Hibernate, including knowing when to bypass the ORM.
- Production experience with Kafka or RabbitMQ: consumer groups, offset management, delivery semantics, and idempotent consumers.
- A practical grasp of distributed-system failure modes: eventual consistency, retries, circuit breakers, timeouts, and distributed tracing.
- Testing discipline: unit tests with JUnit and Mockito, integration tests against a real database, and a sense of what belongs at each level of the test pyramid.
- Comfort with Docker, CI/CD pipelines (we use Maven, Jenkins, and Git with mandatory PR review), and AWS.
- Security awareness: OWASP Top 10 and proper secrets management (AWS Secrets Manager, Vault, or similar).
- Regular use of AI coding tools for code generation, tests, debugging, and documentation, along with the judgment to verify what they produce.
- Professional working English.
Nice to have
- Fintech or payments experience, especially reconciliation, payment idempotency, and audit logging.
- Kotlin, or an interest in learning it.
- Avro or Protocol Buffers with a schema registry.
- WebSockets, Nginx, HAProxy, Tomcat.
- Report generation with JasperReports or xdocreport.
- Experience formally leading a team.
Full-stack track: additionally
- 2+ years with Angular and TypeScript, including RxJS, HTML, and SCSS (Bootstrap is a plus).
- Familiarity with front-end build tooling (Webpack, Babel).
- Bonus: AngularJS experience (we maintain some legacy code), React, or Vue.
How we work
- We clarify ambiguous requirements early instead of building the wrong thing well.
- We value "I'm not sure, let me check" over confident guesses.
- We treat code review as a design conversation.
- We write things down.
What we offer
Compensation range within market standards, contract type (CLT/PJ), benefits, global growth path
Skills Required
- 5+ years of professional Java experience, including at least 3 years making design decisions on production systems
- Deep experience with Spring Boot, including dependency injection, Spring Security, Spring Data, transaction management, and testing
- Strong REST API design skills, including versioning, error handling, idempotency, pagination, and OpenAPI documentation
- Strong relational database skills with PostgreSQL or MySQL, including schema design, indexing, query optimization, and JPA/Hibernate
- Production experience with Kafka or RabbitMQ, including consumer groups, offset management, delivery semantics, and idempotent consumers
- Practical understanding of distributed-system failure modes, eventual consistency, retries, circuit breakers, timeouts, and distributed tracing
- Testing experience with JUnit, Mockito, and integration tests against a real database
- Experience with Docker, Maven, Jenkins, Git, CI/CD pipelines, and AWS
- Security awareness including OWASP Top 10 and secrets management with AWS Secrets Manager, Vault, or similar
- Regular use of AI coding tools for code generation, testing, debugging, and documentation, with the ability to verify outputs
- Professional working English
- Fintech or payments experience, especially reconciliation, payment idempotency, and audit logging
- Kotlin or interest in learning Kotlin
- Experience with Avro or Protocol Buffers and a schema registry
- Experience with WebSockets, Nginx, HAProxy, or Tomcat
- Experience with JasperReports or xdocreport
- Formal team leadership experience
- For the full-stack track: 2+ years of Angular and TypeScript experience, including RxJS, HTML, and SCSS
- For the full-stack track: familiarity with Webpack and Babel
- For the full-stack track: Bootstrap, AngularJS, React, or Vue experience
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The Company
What We Do
Watu is a leading asset financier in emerging markets, providing financing for motorcycles, three-wheelers, and smartphones to empower entrepreneurs and enable them to achieve their goals.
