Tech Lead (Java)

About the Opportunity

Our client is a product-focused technology company delivering scalable, high-performance digital platforms across international markets. Their engineering teams build distributed, event-driven systems designed for reliability, scalability, and long-term growth.

As part of continued expansion, they are looking to hire a Tech Lead (Java) to lead one of their cross-functional engineering teams.

This is a fully remote position within Portugal.

The Role

The Tech Lead will combine strong technical expertise with people leadership responsibilities. This individual will lead a cross-functional Scrum team responsible for designing and delivering scalable Java-based microservices within a distributed systems environment.

The role requires someone who remains hands-on in development while mentoring engineers, driving engineering best practices, and ensuring high standards of quality and delivery.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Lead the design and development of scalable Java-based microservices
• Ensure adherence to architectural standards and best practices
• Collaborate closely with architecture stakeholders to align solutions with long-term strategy
• Promote clean architecture, scalability, and performance optimisation
• Drive Test-Driven Development and software quality standards
• Oversee code reviews and technical decision-making

People & Team Leadership

• Conduct regular 1:1s and support career development planning
• Set objectives, assess performance, and support probation reviews
• Mentor and guide engineers in both technical and professional growth
• Foster a collaborative and accountable team culture
• Work closely with Engineering Management to deliver business and technical goals

Product & Stakeholder Collaboration

• Communicate effectively with business stakeholders regarding deliverables
• Ensure lifecycle ownership of products and services, including live environments
• Oversee incident management and on-call coordination
• Drive transparency around technical debt and OKRs

Technology Stack

• Java 8+ (SE & EE)
• Spring & Spring Boot
• Microservices architecture
• Kafka / RabbitMQ / AMQP / JMS
• JDBC, JPA, JDBI, Hibernate, ORM tools
• PostgreSQL & relational databases
• Cloud environments
• Monitoring tools (e.g., Dynatrace)
• Docker, Maven
• REST APIs & distributed systems

Required Skills & Experience

• Strong hands-on experience in Java 8+ development
• Experience leading engineering teams in a Java environment
• Strong understanding of concurrency and distributed systems
• Deep knowledge of Spring and Spring Boot
• Experience with relational databases and SQL
• Experience designing and building REST APIs
• Proficiency in automated unit and integration testing
• Strong understanding of OOP, design patterns, and multi-threaded systems
• Experience with Git or similar version control systems
• Strong English communication skills

Preferred Experience

• Understanding of Clean Architecture principles
• Experience with ETL processes
• Familiarity with dependency injection and data binding
• Knowledge of Docker and containerisation
• Experience working in high-availability or high-traffic systems
• Background in regulated or high-compliance industries