Java Engineer

Java Engineer - Contract | £600-£700/day | Inside IR35 - Hybrid (London)

I'm working with a leading organisation in the media and broadcasting industry that is looking for an experienced Java Engineer to join its engineering team on an initial 6-month contract.

This is an opportunity to work on highly scalable, business-critical systems within a technically strong engineering environment that places significant emphasis on code quality, testing, automation and continuous improvement.

The team is particularly interested in engineers who can contribute beyond traditional Back End development, bringing fresh ideas around automated testing, AI-driven tooling and improving engineering processes.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain scalable, high-performance Back End applications using Java.
• Build and support event-driven, distributed systems using Apache Kafka.
• Work with Kubernetes and containerised applications in a modern engineering environment.
• Champion engineering best practices, particularly around TDD, automated testing and code quality.
• Contribute to performance, scalability and reliability improvements across high-throughput systems.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual processes, improve development workflows and increase engineering efficiency.
• Explore and implement AI-powered tools and automation to streamline engineering processes.
• Collaborate with engineers and wider technical teams to deliver robust, production-ready solutions.

Key Requirements

• Java: Extensive commercial experience developing complex Back End applications.
• Apache Kafka: Strong hands-on experience with event-driven architectures, messaging and distributed systems.
• Kubernetes: Commercial experience working with containerised applications and orchestration.
• Testing & TDD: Excellent understanding of testing methodologies, with demonstrable experience writing automated tests and following test-driven development practices.
• High-Throughput Systems: Experience designing and developing scalable, resilient systems that process large volumes of data or events.
• Automation Mindset: A proactive approach to identifying inefficiencies and implementing automation to improve engineering productivity.
• AI: An interest in, or practical experience with, AI-assisted development tools and leveraging AI to automate engineering workflows.
• Bonus: Non-Functional Testing -Experience with performance, load, stress, scalability or resilience testing.

What's on Offer?

• Competitive day rate of £600-£700 (Inside IR35).
• Initial 6-month contract.
• Opportunity to work on complex, high-throughput systems within a large-scale engineering environment.