Staff Software Engineer

Rakuten India is the Development Centre and key technology hub of the Rakuten Group, Inc. We enable our businesses with our depth of knowledge in multiple streams of technology such as Mobile and Web Development, Web Analytics, Platform Development, Backend Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and much more. Our unique 24/7 support center ensures reliability and sustenance of the Rakuten Ecosystem. With dedicated centres of excellence for Mobile Application Development, Data Analytics, Engineering, DevOps and Information Security, we ensure the success of multiple units of Rakuten Group, Inc. With 1700+ employees and growing, Rakuten India is housed in Crimson House Bangalore in the heart of the city.

We are seeking an exceptionally skilled and highly experienced Staff Engineer - Backend to join our dynamic engineering team. The ideal candidate will be a deep technical expert with a profound passion for architecting, building, and optimizing complex, robust, and scalable backend systems. You will be a critical individual contributor, driving technical excellence, setting architectural direction, and solving the most challenging technical problems across multiple teams or domains. This role requires a blend of hands-on development, visionary technical leadership, and the ability to influence and elevate engineering practices across the organization.

Responsibilities:

• Technical Vision & Strategy:

  Define and drive the long-term technical vision and strategy for backend systems, aligning with business objectives and product roadmaps.

• Architectural Leadership:

  Lead the design and evolution of highly scalable, resilient, and performant backend architectures (HLD & LLD) across multiple services or domains. Act as a primary authority on system design and architectural patterns.

• Deep Technical Expertise:

  Act as a subject matter expert in backend technologies, providing authoritative guidance and hands-on contributions to solve the most complex technical challenges.

• Cross-Functional Influence:

  Collaborate and influence engineering teams, product managers, and other stakeholders across the organization to ensure technical alignment, foster best practices, and drive technical initiatives.

• System Ownership & Reliability:

  Take ultimate technical ownership for the reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence of critical backend services.

• Hands-on Development & Prototyping:

  Design, develop, and implement core components and services in Java, often tackling the most challenging technical problems or prototyping innovative solutions.

• Microservices & Distributed Systems:

  Drive the evolution and optimization of our microservices architecture, ensuring robust inter-service communication, data consistency, and operational efficiency.

• API Design & Governance:

  Establish and enforce best practices for API design, development, and governance, ensuring consistency, usability, and security across the platform.

• Database Mastery:

  Architect and optimize complex database schemas, write highly efficient SQL queries, and make critical decisions regarding database technologies and strategies for large-scale data.

• CI/CD & DevOps Automation:

  Champion and implement advanced CI/CD strategies and DevOps automation across the backend ecosystem, leveraging tools like Jenkins or GitLab Pipelines for continuous delivery.

• Monitoring, Observability & Incident Response:

  Design and implement sophisticated monitoring, logging, and tracing solutions using ELK, Prometheus, Grafana, etc., and lead efforts in incident diagnosis and resolution for critical production systems.

• Cloud Architecture & Optimization:

  Architect and optimize cloud-native solutions on GCP/AWS/Azure, leveraging advanced cloud services for scalability, cost-efficiency, and resilience.

• Technical Mentorship & Evangelism:

  Mentor senior engineers, share knowledge through technical talks and documentation, and evangelize best practices and new technologies across the engineering organization.

• Code Quality & Standards:

  Set and maintain high standards for code quality, maintainability, and testability, actively participating in and guiding code reviews for critical components.

• Research & Innovation:

  Continuously research and evaluate new technologies, tools, and approaches to solve current and future technical challenges, driving innovation within the team and wider organization.

Must-Have Skill Set:

• Java Expertise (Principal/Staff Level):

  Exceptional proficiency and deep expertise in Java development, including advanced concurrent programming, JVM internals, performance tuning, and mastery of core frameworks (e.g., Spring Boot).

• Architectural Design (HLD & LLD - Expert):

  Proven ability to architect and lead the design of highly complex, large-scale distributed systems, from high-level concepts to detailed implementation plans, with a focus on non-functional requirements.

• System Design & Evolution (Expert):

  Extensive experience in designing, evolving, and maintaining mission-critical backend systems in production environments, demonstrating a strong understanding of trade-offs, scalability, and resilience patterns.

• Microservices & Distributed Systems (Expert):

  Deep, hands-on experience in architecting, implementing, and optimizing complex microservices architectures and distributed systems.

• Kubernetes & Container Orchestration (Expert):

  Advanced expertise with Kubernetes for deploying, managing, and scaling production-grade applications, including custom resource definitions, operators, and advanced networking.

• REST APIs & API Governance (Expert):

  Mastery in designing, developing, securing, and governing RESTful APIs, including versioning, authentication/authorization, and documentation standards (e.g., OpenAPI).

• Database Architecture & Optimization (Expert):

  Expert-level knowledge of relational database internals, advanced SQL optimization techniques, schema evolution for large datasets, and experience with various database technologies (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL).

• CI/CD & DevOps (Expert):

  Proven track record of designing, implementing, and optimizing sophisticated CI/CD pipelines and advanced DevOps practices for continuous delivery and deployment automation.

• Monitoring, Observability & Alerting (Expert):

  In-depth experience with designing and implementing comprehensive monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting solutions using tools like ELK, Prometheus, Grafana, Jaeger, etc.

• Cloud Architecture (Expert):

  Extensive experience designing, implementing, and optimizing cloud-native architectures on at least one major cloud platform (GCP, AWS, or Azure), leveraging advanced services and cost optimization strategies.

• Problem-Solving & Debugging (Exceptional):

  Exceptional ability to diagnose and resolve complex, systemic issues in production environments, often under pressure.

• Influence & Communication:

  Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams, communicate complex technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences, and drive consensus.

Good-to-Have Skill Set:

• Kotlin / Go / Scala:

  Experience with other modern backend languages for specific use cases or polyglot architectures.

• NoSQL Databases (Advanced):

  Deep experience with specific NoSQL databases (e.g., Cassandra, MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB) and understanding their architectural implications for large-scale data.

• Event-Driven Architectures / Messaging Systems (Expert):

  Extensive experience with event streaming platforms (e.g., Kafka) and message queues (e.g., RabbitMQ, SQS) for building resilient and scalable asynchronous systems.

• Performance Engineering:

  Proven experience in identifying performance bottlenecks, conducting load testing, and implementing performance optimizations at scale.

• Security Architecture:

  Strong understanding and practical experience with security best practices, threat modeling, and implementing security controls at an architectural level.

• AI/ML Integration:

  Experience integrating AI/ML models or services into backend systems or leveraging AI-powered tools for advanced code analysis, testing, or operational insights.

• Open-Source Contributions:

  Active contributions to relevant open-source projects.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field. Master's degree preferred.

• 8-12 years of progressive professional experience in backend development, with a significant portion operating as a senior individual contributor, staff engineer, or principal engineer in a product-focused organization.

• Demonstrated ability to drive significant technical initiatives and deliver high-impact solutions across multiple teams or organizational boundaries.
• Exceptional leadership without direct authority, strong collaboration skills, and a proven ability to mentor and elevate the technical capabilities of others.
• A proven track record of solving complex, ambiguous technical problems with innovative and robust solutions.

Rakuten is committed to cultivating and preserving a culture of inclusion and connectedness. We are able to grow and learn better together with a diverse team and inclusive workforce. The collective sum of the individual differences, life experiences, knowledge, innovation, self-expression, and talent that our employees invest in their work represents not only part of our culture, but our reputation and Rakuten's achievement as well. In recruiting for our team, we welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of their education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veteran's status, color, religion, disability, sexual orientation and beliefs