Senior Software Engineer (Java / Kotlin)
Manchester (Hybrid - 2 days onsite per week)
Contract until end of 2026
£731.25/day Umbrella
A global travel technology organisation is building a brand-new connectivity platform and requires a Senior Software Engineer to help shape the architecture, engineering standards and technical direction of a newly formed team.
This is a hands-on senior engineering role where you'll lead the design and delivery of large-scale backend services and integrations connecting external providers into a high-volume marketplace platform.
What you'll be doing
- Designing and building scalable backend services using Java and/or Kotlin
- Leading system design discussions and driving technical decisions
- Building integrations with third-party APIs and external platforms
- Developing resilient distributed systems with a strong focus on reliability and observability
- Collaborating with Product, Operations and Commercial teams to deliver business-critical functionality
- Driving engineering best practice, code quality and operational excellence
- Mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership within the team
Key experience required
- Strong commercial experience developing backend systems in Java and/or Kotlin
- Experience designing and operating distributed systems in production environments
- Strong understanding of API design, integrations and microservices architectures
- Experience working within AWS-based cloud environments
- Kubernetes, Docker and CI/CD experience
- Experience with event-driven architectures, messaging platforms or Kafka
- Strong knowledge of reliability engineering, observability, monitoring and incident management
- Ability to lead technical design initiatives and break down complex problems into deliverable solutions
Desirable experience
- Writing integration tests and contract tests
- Travel, marketplace, ticketing or connectivity platform experience
- Experience using Claude or other AI-assisted engineering tools
- Previous experience helping establish processes, standards and architecture within new or scaling teams
What's on offer
- Long-term contract through to the end of 2026
- Opportunity to influence architecture and engineering standards from the ground up
- Work on a highly scalable, globally distributed platform
- Hybrid working model with 2 days per week onsite in Manchester
