Senior Kotlin/Java Engineer (Core Data Engine)

🏢 About the Company

We are a London-founded, VC-backed data infrastructure startup with a distributed international team.

We build deep-tech products that help engineering teams use production-like data safely and efficiently across development, testing, and QA.

🛠 About the Product

A DataOps platform that masks sensitive data, generates realistic synthetic data, and creates production-like subsets for safe use in non-production environments.

🔍 About the Role

You will join the team building the most technically complex part of the product: a high-performance data engine working with large relational datasets and database internals.

⚡ What You’ll Do

• Design and implement core engine components in Kotlin/Java
• Work deeply with relational databases, add support for new databases, formats, and generation/masking configurations
• Solve ambiguous, research-heavy engineering problems where no ready-made solution exists
• Improve JVM performance: concurrency, memory usage, latency, throughput
• Collaborate on architecture, code reviews, and technical decisions in a senior engineering environment
• Work closely with platform/backend teams while owning core engine logic

📋 What We’re Looking For

• Strong backend experience with Java (Kotlin is a plus; willingness to work in Kotlin is enough)
• Solid Java Core knowledge, especially concurrency and multithreading
• Experience with high-load / low-latency systems
• Deep practical understanding of relational databases (PostgreSQL/MySQL/ClickHouse/etc.)
• Proven work with large data volumes (hundreds of GB to TB-scale is a strong plus)
• Strong CS fundamentals: algorithms and data structures
• Comfortable owning open-ended technical problems from research to implementation
• English: B2+ (team communication is in English)

➕ Nice to Have

• Background in C/C++ or other low-level/system languages
• Data engineering exposure (ETL/ELT, pipelines, large-scale data migration)
• JVM performance tuning and profiling experience
• Open-source contributions (especially database/infrastructure projects)
• Startup or technical founder experience
• QA-to-backend background

✨ What We Offer

• Competitive compensation
• Remote-first setup with B2B contract
• Flexible working hours with collaboration around UK/EU time
• Paid time off and holidays per company policy
• Annual learning/home-office budget
• Strong engineering culture with high ownership and meaningful technical impact