Backend Engineer
kpler · United Kingdom · hybrid
At Kpler, we are dedicated to helping our clients navigate complex markets with ease. By simplifying global trade information and providing valuable insights, we empower organisations to make informed decisions in commodities, energy, and maritime sectors.
Since our founding in 2014, we have focused on delivering top-tier intelligence through user-friendly platforms. Our team of over 850 experts from 69 countries works tirelessly to transform intricate data into actionable strategies, ensuring our clients stay ahead in a dynamic market landscape. Join us to leverage cutting-edge innovation for impactful results and experience unparalleled support on your journey to success.
About the Role
As an Engineer II within our Engineering Maritime & Logistics division, you will play a pivotal role in designing, building, and operating high-throughput data processing and API distribution systems. You will take end-to-end ownership of real-time streaming applications, backend services, and reliable pipelines that deliver critical maritime intelligence to global consumers via Kafka, Flink, and Snowflake. By maintaining platform resilience and scaling event-driven architectures, your work directly powers the actionable insights our clients rely on to navigate complex global trade.
Key Responsibilities:
- Design, build, and maintain high-performance backend services and APIs using TypeScript, Java, and PHP.
- Develop and operate real-time data pipelines and stream-processing applications utilizing Apache Kafka, Flink, and Kafka Streams.
- Drive end-to-end ownership of backend services from initial technical design through deployment, continuous monitoring, and production operations.
- Monitor system health, throughput, and consumer lag across streaming infrastructure to maximize data freshness and platform uptime.
- Investigate production incidents, perform root-cause analysis, and implement preventative architectural improvements.
- Reduce technical debt by continuously improving software maintainability, system observability, automated testing, and CI/CD practices.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product managers, platform teams, and peer engineers to translate complex maritime business requirements into scalable solutions.
Experience & Background:
- 3+ years of professional software engineering experience delivering backend services and APIs.
- Proven proficiency in at least two core backend programming languages: Java, TypeScript, PHP, or Scala.
- Hands-on experience building and operating data pipelines or stream-processing applications in production cloud environments (AWS).
- Direct experience operating services on Kubernetes and delivering changes using GitOps workflows.
- Solid understanding of database design, SQL, data modeling, and distributed systems fundamentals.
- Production experience with Apache Flink and Kafka Streams.
- Exposure to Test-Driven Development (TDD) and modern observability tooling (metrics, logging, tracing, alerting).
- Background working on systems where low latency, high throughput, and data freshness are critical operational requirements.
We are a dynamic company dedicated to nurturing connections and innovating solutions to tackle market challenges head-on. If you thrive on customer satisfaction and turning ideas into reality, then you’ve found your ideal destination. Are you ready to embark on this exciting journey with us?
We make things happen
We act decisively and with purpose, going the extra mile.
We build together
We foster relationships and develop creative solutions to address market challenges.
We are here to help
We are accessible and supportive to colleagues and clients with a friendly approach.
Our People Pledge
Don’t meet every single requirement? Research shows that women and people of color are less likely than others to apply if they feel like they don’t match 100% of the job requirements. Don’t let the confidence gap stand in your way, we’d love to hear from you! We understand that experience comes in many different forms and are dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team.
Kpler is committed to providing a fair, inclusive and diverse work-environment. We believe that different perspectives lead to better ideas, and better ideas allow us to better understand the needs and interests of our diverse, global community. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives and are an equal opportunity employer.
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