Principal Software Engineer, Backend

We're looking for Principal Software Engineers to help us build a technology platform for more than just the needs of Autotrader.co.uk. Utilising our public-facing web services and additional external data sources means that we'll be able to power businesses across the automotive industry. Spring Boot, Apache Solr, Cloud SQL and Apache Kafka power our platform and process millions of events per day. As a team, our software developers are responsible for ensuring service availability and responsiveness continue to improve. They work on systems that handle thousands of requests per second, with sub-100 millisecond response times, servicing requests from over 50 client applications. Our tech community value collaboration and teamwork. Interactions such as pairing, code reviews and regular stand-ups mean our software developers stay connected. Our principal engineers play a visible and vital role, are comfortable talking about system design and architecture, and know how to get the best out of our teams and our technology platforms. You might assume that our name, "Autotrader," means you need to be a car enthusiast to work here. But that's not the case. We're looking for people who are passionate about their work and thrive in a collaborative environment.

What We're Looking For

• A thorough understanding of Java and the JVM
• Knowledge of server-side frameworks such as Spring
• Web application design and RESTful API know-how
• A structured approach to programming and testing, such as TDD
• Proven experience mentoring, coaching and sharing technical expertise
• Architectural and system design knowledge
• Experience leading and delivering technical projects
• SQL/Relational databases
• Document/Map based storage (eg: MongoDB)
• Working with Kafka messaging/streaming