Senior Java Backend Engineer

Why Join Spica?

As a Senior Java Backend Engineer at Spica, you will help shape the services, integrations, and platform foundations behind GemEx, our workplace experience platform used to connect people, buildings, data, and workplace technology. This is a senior engineering role with real influence: you will design resilient backend services, contribute to architectural decisions, support production reliability, and help raise engineering standards across the team.

About Spica

Spica is a fast-growing specialist digital solution provider, combining web, desktop and mobile user experiences, systems integration, and IoT technology to help organisations make better use of emerging workplace technologies.

As a PropTech business, we create digital products that improve workplace experience, building performance, and operational insight. Our GemEx platform combines Digital Twin capabilities, workplace analytics, IoT sensing technologies, and integrations with key business systems.

Our Values

• Relentless Innovation – Everyone is encouraged to think in new ways so we are always moving forward.
• In It Together – Our job descriptions are not boundaries of limitation but a springboard for opportunities.
• People Not Numbers – We pride ourselves on nurturing long-term partnerships, and our team is at the heart of everything we do.
• High Performing Culture – Everyone is a leader, striving for self-actualisation at work.
• Work Balance – Working hard is only sustainable when balanced with family, friends, and relaxation.

The Role

You will join a multidisciplinary product engineering team responsible for developing advanced workplace experience solutions across Digital Twin capabilities, IoT integrations, workplace analytics, mobile applications, and customer-facing web experiences.

Working closely with frontend engineers, mobile developers, product managers, and solution architects, you will design, build, and maintain the core backend services that power our platform.

You will also play a senior role in evolving the platform architecture, improving performance and reliability, mentoring others, and supporting the adoption of modern engineering practices.

What You’ll Do

• Backend engineering: Design, develop, test, and maintain Java backend services, RESTful APIs, integrations, relational data models, and event-driven distributed applications.
• Architecture and reliability: Contribute to architectural decisions, platform scalability, performance, resilience, observability, deployment automation, and production readiness.
• Collaboration and delivery: Work closely with frontend, mobile, product, support, and operations teams to deliver high-quality features and minimise customer impact during incidents.
• Engineering leadership: Lead by example through code reviews, technical design sessions, mentoring, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement of engineering practices.

Operational Support & Release Responsibilities

Our platforms support enterprise customers across multiple regions and time zones, so reliability and operational ownership are important parts of the role. You will help maintain availability, improve observability, and support continuous improvement of production environments.

This role includes participation in a shared out-of-hours support and release rota, including scheduled releases and occasional incident support outside normal business hours.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Strong commercial experience developing applications with Java (Java 17+ preferred).
• Experience developing applications using Spring Boot.
• Experience designing and developing RESTful APIs.
• Strong understanding of microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Strong experience with messaging platforms such as Kafka.
• Strong SQL skills and experience with JDBC.
• Experience with relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.
• Experience writing automated tests, including unit, integration, and contract tests.
• Experience with Git and modern CI/CD pipelines.
• Understanding of containerisation technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience working within Agile delivery teams.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Ability to learn quickly, take initiative, and work independently.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• Exposure to Angular and TypeScript.
• Experience with Apache Ignite or distributed caching technologies.
• Experience with Apache Cassandra.
• Experience with AWS cloud services.
• Experience with infrastructure as code tools such as Terraform.
• Experience with observability tooling such as CloudWatch, Prometheus, Grafana, or OpenTelemetry.
• Experience with OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and modern identity platforms.
• Oracle Java certification.
• Experience working on SaaS or cloud-native products.

How We Build Software

• Agile product squads with two-week sprint cycles.
• Peer-reviewed pull requests.
• Automated testing and CI/CD pipelines.
• Infrastructure as code.
• Cloud-native architecture on AWS.
• Observability-first mindset.
• Continuous learning and knowledge sharing.

What Success Looks Like in Your First 12 Months

• Develop a strong understanding of the GemEx platform and workplace technology domain.
• Deliver production-ready features within sprint cycles.
• Contribute to improving engineering standards, automation, and platform performance.
• Build trusted relationships across product, engineering, and customer teams.
• Identify opportunities to improve quality, scalability, reliability, and user experience.

Experience & Qualifications

• Typically four or more years’ experience in backend software engineering, with evidence of senior-level ownership and technical influence.
• Experience supporting production systems in a SaaS or cloud-based environment
• A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, another numerate discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Willingness to participate in a shared out-of-hours support and release rota.

Why You’ll Enjoy Working Here

• A meaningful opportunity to help scale a thriving SaaS product business with a platform used in modern workplace environments.
• Autonomy and influence in a senior engineering role, with opportunities to shape architecture, engineering standards, and delivery practices.
• A friendly, encouraging, and motivating environment with a team that works hard, supports one another, and values balance.
• Access to Birmingham’s innovation ecosystem at Innovation Birmingham Science Park.

Reward & Recognition

• Salary band: £65,000 to £90,000 dependent on experience.
• Pension in line with auto-enrolment requirements.
• Flexible working arrangements.
• Hybrid office working.
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays, with an additional day off for your birthday.
• Regular reviews and progression planning.
• Training opportunities in new and emerging technologies.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

We wholeheartedly support the principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion in employment and oppose all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and marriage or civil partnership.

If you are a backend engineer who enjoys solving complex platform challenges, building reliable services, and contributing to products that shape the future of workplace experience, we would welcome your application.