Backend Java Engineer – Kafka / Distributed Systems

Location: Vancouver, BC - Hybrid (3 Days WFO)

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and optimize backend services handling high-volume data flows with strict performance and reliability requirements.

- Develop Java-based components using modern frameworks (Spring/Spring Boot or equivalent).
- Build and maintain asynchronous and event-driven workflows using messaging systems such as MQ/Kafka/RabbitMQ.
- Implement performance tuning, profiling, and observability to support sub-second latency and 99.99% availability goals.
- Drive solutioning and system designs for new features, integrations, and platform enhancements across distributed systems.
- Ensure service robustness through automated testing (unit, integration, load tests) and CI/CD workflows.
- Apply secure-by-design principles, including threat modeling, secure data handling, API hardening, and least-privilege access.
- Implement and support authentication and authorization patterns (e.g., OAuth2, mTLS, JWT, service-to-service auth).
- Participate in architecture reviews, offering technical leadership and mentorship to junior engineers.
- Diagnose and resolve complex production issues across infrastructure, code, and messaging layers.
- Enhance platform reliability via improved logging, monitoring, alerting, and operational tooling.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on backend development experience in large-scale, high-throughput environments.

- Strong proficiency in Java (Java 8+, multithreading, concurrency libraries, performance optimization).
- Solid understanding of Linux fundamentals (filesystem, networking basics, shell operations, performance tools).




- Extensive experience with Message Queue systems (IBM MQ, Kafka, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, etc.).
- Deep knowledge of asynchronous programming, non-blocking IO patterns, and event-driven system design.
- Good understanding of modern network protocols, including:
- gRPC (service-to-service communication, protobuf, streaming patterns)
- HTTP/2 (multiplexing, header compression, flow control, performance benefits)
- Experience implementing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tooling, including:
- Jenkins
- Chef Infra / Chef Habitat
- Terraform
- PCF CLI
- Demonstrated ability to design scalable system architectures and evaluate design trade-offs.
- Basic understanding of Authentication/Authorization concepts and secure communication patterns.
- Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) is an asset.
- Excellent debugging, problem-solving, and performance-profiling skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services, real-time scoring, risk systems, or other low-latency domains.

- Exposure to observability stacks (Splunk, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK).
- Knowledge of DevOps practices, automation, and additional IaC tools.
- Hands-on understanding of reliability engineering (circuit breakers, retries, backpressure, failover strategies).
- Ability to lead complex technical initiatives and drive cross-team alignment.

What We Look For

• A strong ownership mindset with a passion for delivering secure, high-quality, and resilient services.

- Ability to influence architecture, mentor engineers, and uplift engineering standards.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

📌 Backend Java Engineer – Kafka / Distributed Systems (Vancouver)
🏢 Astra-North Infoteck Inc. ~ Conquering today’s challenges, achieving tomorrow’s vision!
📍 Vancouver