Senior Software Engineer (Java / Kotlin)

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