Mid-Level Java Backend Engineer

Role Overview

You will take ownership of critical backend components that directly power Zeraki’s suite of educational tools across multiple African markets. Day to day, this means designing and building high-throughput services with Java and Spring Boot, refactoring existing code for better performance, and ensuring production systems remain stable under growing demand. This role matters because your work enables seamless digital learning experiences for millions of students and educators, supporting Zeraki’s mission to close the education quality gap through technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services using Java and Spring Boot, delivering features with minimal supervision.
• Refactor and optimise legacy code to improve performance, maintainability, and scalability as the platform grows.
• Contribute to architectural decisions, especially in areas like distributed systems, API design, or message queues.
• Support production environments through proactive monitoring, incident response, and deployment automation.
• Write comprehensive tests (unit, integration, performance) to ensure system reliability and prevent regressions.
• Mentor less experienced engineers during code reviews and pair debugging sessions, helping raise team standards.
• Collaborate with Product, QA, and Customer Experience teams to align technical implementation with user needs.
• Identify and resolve complex bottlenecks—whether they are logic errors, data layer inefficiencies, or infrastructure constraints.

Requirements & Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of hands-on experience building Java backend systems, with deep proficiency in Spring Boot or equivalent frameworks.
• Proven ability to design RESTful APIs and microservices that are both performant and easy to evolve.
• Strong working knowledge of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and at least one NoSQL store (e.g., MongoDB, Redis).
• Hands‑on experience with cloud deployment (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerisation with Docker, and CI/CD pipeline tooling.
• Solid debugging and performance tuning skills—able to profile memory, trace latency, and optimise queries independently.
• A builder mindset: you proactively anticipate growth‑related issues and propose forward‑looking improvements.
• Team‑oriented communication style, able to explain trade‑offs clearly in architectural discussions and sprint planning.
• Genuine interest in education technology and aligning your work with Zeraki’s impact‑driven mission.

What We Offer / Why Join

This is a chance to shape the next generation of education technology in Africa, working on a platform used by millions. You’ll join a purpose‑driven team that values innovation and impact, with clear growth pathways as the engineering organisation scales. The role comes with competitive compensation, hybrid or remote work options to support your work‑life balance, and the opportunity to take ownership of meaningful technical challenges from day one.