Senior Backend Engineer

**About us**

iLex is a rapidly growing next-gen B2B SaaS fintech start-up headquartered in Singapore, with operations in Hong Kong, London, and Sophia Antipolis. iLex integrates on a single platform access to global loan markets and a large network of investors, primary and secondary deal sites, advanced investor intelligence and market analytics for banks, debt advisors and institutional lenders.

iLex’s vision is to drive liquidity, efficiency, transparency, and security in loan capital markets. In collaboration with the industry, iLex builds cutting-edge solutions across the loan value chain to create more resilient and efficient loan markets. By doing so, we actively contribute to providing better access to financing opportunities for all businesses and projects, advancing global growth and progress.

**About the role**

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join our team in Sophia Antipolis. As a integral member of the Engineering team and working closely with the Product and Frontend teams, you’ll be responsible for designing, improving, and maintaining our backend architecture and the codebase.

**Our stack**

- **Core**:Java 21, Spring Boot 3 (WebMVC/WebFlux, Validation, Security, OAuth2 Resource Server), RESTful APIs, microservices
- **Data**:PostgreSQL, Redis, jOOQ, Liquibase
- **Messaging & Auth**:Apache Kafka, Keycloak (OIDC/OAuth2)
- **Build & Infra**:Maven, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS (EKS, S3, SQS, SES, Secrets Manager), Jib
- **Observability**:Micrometer + OpenTelemetry (OTLP), Actuator, structured logging (Logstash)
- **Tooling**:Testcontainers, Springdoc OpenAPI

**You will**:

- Design, build and maintain scalable backend services for the iLex electronic market & trading platform
- Design and optimize database schemas, queries, and data access patterns
- Contribute to all phases of product development
- Perform code analysis, troubleshooting, improvement and bug fixing
- Build event-driven architectures using Kafka
- Implement comprehensive monitoring, logging, and observability solutions
- Ensure system security, compliance, and data integrity across all services
- Collaborate with frontend engineers to design efficient API contracts
- Participate in code reviews, architectural decisions, and system design discussions

**What we look for**:
Must haves:

- **6+ years** of backend development experience with **Java** (**Java 17+ preferred**)
- Strong experience with **Spring Boot** and **Spring ecosystem** (Spring Data, Spring Security, etc.)
- Hands-on experience with:

- **RESTful API** design and implementation
- **Relational databases** (PostgreSQL) and SQL optimization
- **Build tools** (Maven or Gradle)
- **Git/GitHub workflows** and modern **CI/CD practices**

- Experience building and operating **microservices** and distributed systems
- Understanding of **containerization** (Docker) and orchestration concepts
- Knowledge of **authentication and authorization mechanisms** (JWT, OAuth2)
- Experience with **message brokers** (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar)
- Strong **problem-solving** **skills** and **attention to detail**
- **Proactive and autonomous**, with the ability to take ownership and drive solutions end-to-end

Nice to have:

- Experience with **Quarkus** or other cloud-native frameworks
- Background in **financial services** or **trading systems**
- Knowledge of **Jakarta EE**
- Hands-on experience with **Kubernetes** and cloud platforms (**AWS preferred**)
- Familiarity with **event sourcing** and **CQRS patterns**
- Experience with **Keycloak** or similar identity management systems
- Experience with **database migration tools** (Liquibase, Flyway)
- Skills in **performance optimization** and **profiling**
- Experience with monitoring/observability tools (**Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack**)
- Familiarity with **DevOps practices** and **infrastructure as code**

**Who you are**

We are a lean team and as we continue to grow, maintaining our company culture and living by our values is key, so it’s important to us that you display:

- Transparency - effectively communicate in good times and bad times
- Simplicity - be focused and straightforward
- Impact - spend time where it matters to get results
- Commitment - take initiative, do what you say, and stick with the journey
- Challenge - be curious and take feedback to continuously improve
- Goodwill - appreciate your team and colleagues

You should also be keen on working in a fast paced, quickly scaling, start-up environment. If you are motivated and results-focused, we’d like to meet you.

**What we offer**

- Competitive salary
- Flexible leave structure
- Flexible working arrangements so you can work from office, from home and from anywhere
- Annual allowance for health & wellbeing including access to corporate medical and dental insurance plan
- Annual allowance for learning & development
- Great career development in a fast-paced environment
- Regular company social events
- Being part of a team of seasoned profes