Lead Java Engineer

OverviewBackend Lead Java position. Experience: 12+ Years. Location: Onsite Dubai (Local UAE Candidates Only). Notice Period: Immediate to 15 Days. Nationality: Indian. We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Java Engineer with deep expertise in Java, Spring Boot, and enterprise-grade microservices architecture. This role requires strong architectural judgment, security-first thinking, and hands-on ownership of backend systems operating at scale. As a technical Lead, you will drive architecture decisions, define integration and security standards, and ensure systems are scalable, resilient, and compliant, while remaining actively involved in core development.ResponsibilitiesArchitecture & Technical Leadership: Lead the design and evolution of microservices architecture using Java (8/11/17+) and Spring Boot. Own end-to-end system architecture, including service boundaries, communication patterns, and failure handling. Define and enforce security architecture standards across services (authentication, authorization, data protection). Act as the technical authority for design reviews, architecture decisions, and complex integrations.Security & Identity: Design and implement secure API access using JWT, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and token-based authentication. Enforce zero-trust principles across microservices and external integrations. Ensure secure handling of PII and sensitive data, aligned with compliance requirements. Guide teams on API security, rate limiting, throttling, and abuse prevention.Integration & API Management: Design and govern external integrations (on-prem systems, third-party APIs, cloud services). Implement API management strategies including versioning, lifecycle management, and backward compatibility. Define idempotent APIs and ensure safe retry behavior across distributed systems. Lead the use of API gateways for routing, authentication, rate limiting, and observability.Event-Driven & Distributed Systems: Architect and implement event-driven systems using Kafka (topics, partitions, consumer groups, schema evolution). Ensure exactly-once / at-least-once processing strategies where applicable. Design reliable async workflows with proper retry, dead-letter, and error-handling strategies.Development & Engineering Excellence: Remain hands-on by developing core services, frameworks, and shared libraries. Enforce best practices in code quality, performance optimization, and JVM tuning. Conduct architecture-level and code reviews to ensure consistency and scalability. Mentor engineers on system design, security, and distributed systems best practices.Required Skills & Experience10+ years of backend development experience with strong Core Java expertise.Deep experience with Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and building large-scale microservices.Strong understanding of microservices architecture, DDD, SOLID principles, and design patterns.Proven expertise in security architecture: JWT, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, secure API design.Hands-on experience with Kafka or similar messaging systems in production.Strong understanding of idempotency, retries, eventual consistency, and distributed system challenges.Experience with API management platforms and gateway-based architectures.Solid experience integrating on-prem systems, external APIs, and cloud services.Strong database knowledge (PostgreSQL/MySQL); exposure to NoSQL is a plus.Experience with Docker and deploying services on Kubernetes.Preferred / Good to Have Cloud experience (AWS / Azure / GCP).Observability and monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK).CI/CD pipelines and DevOps best practices.Experience with resilience patterns: circuit breakers, bulkheads, rate limiting.Exposure to performance testing and chaos engineering.What Makes This Role DifferentArchitecture ownership without people managementStrong focus on security, reliability, and integrationOpportunity to influence enterprise-wide technical standardsHands-on leadership in complex, high-scale distributed systems#J-18808-Ljbffr