Staff Backend Engineer

We are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to design and build scalable, AI-native backend services that power customer intelligence, campaign orchestration, and attribution at automotive retail scale. This role is the critical technical anchor — defining hexagonal architecture patterns, owning service boundaries, driving AI integration patterns, and setting the engineering bar for the entire team.

Key Responsibilities

 • Architect Java (Spring Boot 3.x) microservices using hexagonal architecture — defining clean domain cores, port interfaces for persistence (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB), and adapter implementations for Kafka, Elasticsearch, Redis/Aerospike, and external APIs.

• Own core domain models and service boundaries end-to-end: from initial hexagonal design through production operation, Kafka event contracts, and iterative enhancement.

• Build scalable, secure REST APIs and robust Kafka-based event-driven pipelines that consume and produce events across multiple source systems. 

• Design MongoDB document schemas and PostgreSQL relational schemas for high-throughput, multi-tenant workloads — with deep attention to indexing strategy, TTL, and tenant isolation patterns.

• Design Cosmos DB data models for high-throughput event and state storage — partition key strategy, consistency levels, and TTL configuration. 

• Design and implement durable campaign execution workflows using Temporal. 

• Establish and own AI-native integration patterns: MCP tool registration, scoring model serving contracts, LLM gateway integration, and agentic workflow design.

• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across services, Kafka pipelines, data layers, and Elasticsearch query performance. 

• Ensure all systems meet reliability, scalability, and observability standards.

• Mentor senior, mid-level, and junior engineers — setting and consistently raising the engineering bar.

Skills & Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience with a strong track record delivering production-grade Java systems.

• Deep expertise in hexagonal architecture (ports & adapters) — proven ability to design domain cores fully decoupled from infrastructure layers.

• Strong Java 21 and Spring Boot 3.x expertise with event-driven, microservices-first design. 

• Strong experience with Kafka — consumer groups, partition design, offset management, idempotent consumers, and event-driven service integration.

• Proven experience with MongoDB: document schema design, indexing, aggregation pipelines, and multi tenant isolation patterns.

• Strong PostgreSQL experience: complex schema design, query optimization, migration management.

• Experience with Cosmos DB or equivalent globally distributed key-value stores: partition key design, consistency tuning, high-throughput read/write patterns.

• Solid experience with Elasticsearch: index design, search query optimization, relevance tuning.

• Experience with Redis or Aerospike for high-throughput caching and session/state management.

• Strong understanding of distributed systems: service boundaries, data consistency, idempotency, retries, and circuit breaking on AWS (EKS, MSK).

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Temporal for durable workflow orchestration. 

• Familiarity with MCP tool registration patterns and agentic platform integration.

• Working knowledge of Python for AI/ML pipeline integration (scoring models, feature serving, LLM gateway patterns).

• Prior experience building data platforms, real-time analytics systems, or AI-native SaaS products.

Perks & Benefits 

• Competitive compensation and generous stock options.

• Medical insurance coverage.

• Work with some of the brightest minds from Silicon Valley's most dominant and successful companies.