Senior Java / API Engineer

About the role

You’ve built API platforms from the inside, not from a whiteboard. We need someone who can own the architecture of an enterprise API gateway program, set patterns the rest of the org will follow for years, and still throw down code when a complex integration calls for it.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and design for an enterprise API gateway program serving dozens of downstream teams
• Define API standards, governance, and security patterns across the organization
• Build reference implementations and reusable libraries that scale across teams
• Drive performance, resiliency, and observability strategy for the gateway layer
• Mentor mid-level Java engineers and grow the bench
• Partner with security to enforce zero-trust and least-privilege at the API layer

Requirements

• 7+ years of Java engineering, with 3+ years focused on API gateway / API platform work
• Deep Spring Cloud, Spring Boot, and microservices architecture experience
• Strong understanding of authentication, authorization, and API security patterns
• Hands-on with at least one major API gateway at production scale (Apigee, Kong, APIM, etc.)
• Experience leading architecture for high-throughput, low-latency systems
• Track record of mentoring and leveling up other engineers

Bonus points

• Experience in financial services or another regulated industry
• Service mesh exposure (Istio, Linkerd)
• Event-driven architecture experience (Kafka, Pulsar)
• Published patterns, talks, or open-source contributions in the API space