Software Engineer III, Backend

About the role

You will own the full lifecycle of consumer payment features that directly impact millions of users across Italy and Europe, translating ambiguous product ideas into robust, scalable backend systems. In this role, you will design and operate mission-critical services using Java, Spring Boot, and PostgreSQL while ensuring high availability and performance. You will build and enhance core financial functionalities such as BNPL, Gift Cards, Mobile Top-ups, and Personal IBAN transfers with a focus on clarity and reliability. You will leverage AWS infrastructure including EC2, ECS, S3, Lambda, and Kinesis to modernize our microservices and improve operational efficiency. You will use AI tools on a daily basis to assist with coding, debugging, and documentation to accelerate delivery and maintain code quality. You will collaborate closely with Product and UX/UI teams to refine requirements and ensure backend solutions align with user needs. You will investigate production incidents and debug complex cross-service issues to drive continuous improvements in system reliability and user experience.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Own the End-to-End Lifecycle: Design, build, test, and operate mission-critical consumer features - from technical design to production - using Java, Spring Boot, and PostgreSQL.
• Build & Scale High-Impact Features: Develop and maintain core user functionalities such as BNPL ("Pay in 3"), Gift Cards, Mobile Top-ups, and Personal IBAN transfers.
• Enhance Payments Mechanics: Improve the backend logic and reliability of budget mechanisms and scheduled top-ups, ensuring payment mechanics are clear and scalable.
• Master a Modern Tech Stack: Take ownership of our AWS-based infrastructure (EC2/ECS, S3, Lambda, Kinesis) and drive architectural improvements across microservices.
• Work in an AI-Powered Environment: Leverage AI tools daily to write and optimize code, speed up root cause analysis, and generate documentation to raise engineering efficiency.
• Solve Complex & Ambiguous Problems: Turn vague user needs into scalable technical solutions, balancing delivery speed with technical quality and maintainability.
• Collaborate & Lead Quality: Work cross-functionally with Product and UX/UI teams while contributing to code reviews and refactoring initiatives to promote best practices.
• Drive System Reliability: Debug complex issues across services and investigate production incidents to continuously improve system health.
• Translate business requirements into resilient backend services that meet strict compliance and security standards for financial applications.
• Partner with Data teams to define metrics and monitor user behavior to inform product decisions and prioritize impactful features.
• Implement automation to streamline deployment pipelines, reduce manual effort, and improve reliability of releases.
• Optimize database queries and infrastructure configurations to support growth while maintaining low latency and high throughput.
• Mentor junior engineers by providing guidance during code reviews, design discussions, and technical troubleshooting sessions.
• Participate in on-call rotations to ensure timely response to critical issues and contribute to incident postmortems.
• Explore and prototype new technologies that could enhance our platform, presenting findings for team evaluation and adoption.
• Ensure that all delivered solutions are testable, maintainable, and aligned with long-term product vision and architectural goals.

Requirements

• You have at least 3 years of experience as a Backend Engineer in fast-paced environments, with a strong track record of building and maintaining scalable microservices.
• You possess solid expertise in Java and Spring Boot, along with a deep understanding of RESTful API design and object-oriented principles.
• You are comfortable working with relational databases, especially PostgreSQL, and writing efficient, maintainable SQL.
• You have hands-on experience with AWS services such as EC2, ECS, S3, Lambda, or Kinesis, and understand cloud-native best practices.
• You care deeply about performance, reliability, and clean business logic to ensure a high-quality product that meets user expectations.
• You excel at cross-functional collaboration and can communicate complex technical ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• You are fluent in English and passionate about FinTech and/or startup environments, thriving in fast-paced, evolving settings.
• You have a strong sense of ownership and are proactive in identifying issues, proposing improvements, and driving them to completion.
• You are comfortable working in an agile environment with frequent iterations, shifting priorities, and tight deadlines.
• You value clean code, automated testing, and observability, and you consistently apply these practices in your work.
• You understand the importance of security and compliance in financial systems and incorporate best practices into your implementations.
• You are comfortable debugging production issues using logs, metrics, and distributed tracing tools.
• You are willing to participate in on-call rotations and respond to incidents outside regular working hours as needed.
• You have a collaborative mindset and actively seek feedback to improve both your own work and team processes.

Nice to have

• Experience with building payment flows and handling financial transactions in regulated environments.
• Familiarity with modern CI/CD tools and infrastructure as code practices.
• Background in designing event-driven architectures or working with streaming platforms like Kafka.
• Exposure to AI-assisted development tools and prompt engineering for software engineering tasks.
• Experience contributing to open source projects or publishing reusable libraries.

Practical notes

• Work model: Hybrid (three days per week in-office: Tuesday and Thursday + 1 chosen day).
• Relocation support is available for candidates moving countries.
• This role is part of a growth-oriented environment with fast delivery cycles and frequent iterations.