Senior Backend Engineer (m/f/d; Java/Kotlin, AI-Driven Systems)

talentsconnect AG

from today

Your duties

We are talentsconnect

We believe people find their best-fit job when HR teams are empowered with the right tools. 
At talentsconnect, we help companies transform HR from a cost center into a strategic value driver—with a platform that supports smarter hiring, onboarding, and retention.
We’re remote-first, async-friendly, and focused on real impact. Our teams value learning, ownership, and collaboration across diverse experiences. If you’re excited to build scalable backend systems—and apply AI not just in how you code, but in what you build—we’d love to hear from you.


What you’ll do

We’re looking for a Senior Backend Engineer who builds reliable, scalable systems — and uses AI naturally as part of their workflow.
You’ll join a cross-functional squad that ships products used by thousands of candidates and recruiters every day. This isn’t about chasing AI trends — it’s about applying modern tools and practices to make our platform smarter, faster, and easier to maintain.


You will:
  • Design, build, and maintain backend services in Java 17 or 21 or Kotlin.
  • Integrate AI-powered product features (e.g., automation, classification, or workflow optimization) where they add clear product value
  • Contribute to a culture of pragmatic engineering – balancing clean design with delivery speed
  • Collaborate closely with frontend, QA, and product to ship improvements end-to-end
  • Help diagnose and resolve complex issues, ensuring customer success teams are supported with clear technical insight.
  • Continuously improve our delivery pipelines, test automation, and observability.
  • Share learnings from other environments to challenge and improve our current practices

Your profile

Who we’re looking for

We’re aiming to grow our team with engineers who are not only comfortable delivering backend systems but are also excited about influencing how our platform uses AI to solve meaningful problems. This is a great role for someone with experience who wants to influence system design and lead AI-powered feature development, while also collaborating closely with teammates. 
  • You’re an experienced backend engineer who enjoys finding the right solution — not just the textbook one. 
  • You’ve seen how different teams and architectures work and can bring that perspective to evolve our own systems. Whether you’ve grown into system ownership through years of experience, entrepreneurial work, or deep specialization—we’d love to hear from you.
  • You’re comfortable working independently, using AI tools to accelerate your workflow, and collaborating in a remote-first, async environment.
  • You don’t need to check every box to apply. Nobody checks every box, and we warmly welcome applications from people of all backgrounds—especially if you're underrepresented in tech.

What matters most
  • Pragmatism over dogma — you know when to trade abstraction for clarity.
  • Modern mindset — you naturally use AI tools like Claude, Windsurf, or Cursor in your daily work.
  • Experience across environments — you’ve seen multiple codebases and can spot good patterns fast.
  • Curiosity and autonomy — you don’t need babysitting, and you help others work smarter.
  • Clear, constructive communication — you help create a healthy, collaborative engineering culture.
  • We’re open to exceptional mid-level engineers ready to take the next step — especially if you bring strong ownership and a modern engineering mindset.

Some Skills and Experiences that will help you succeed
  • You're comfortable going beyond AI tooling to design systems that leverage AI meaningfully
  • You’re comfortable building with LLMs, prompt design, embeddings, or integrating AI services into customer workflows
  • You constantly ask: “Could AI solve this better?”
  • You’ve actively contributed to, or are ready to step into, architectural conversations and delivery leadership for AI-related features.
  • You can easily and fluently communicate in English (reading, writing, listening, speaking)

How You Work
  • You take ownership of outcomes from start to end, not just tickets
  • You contribute to delivery speed, quality, and clarity across your team
  • You thrive in async, remote collaboration and document your thinking well
  • You have a strong service mindset towards internal and external customers

Our tech stack
  • Languages: Java, Kotlin, PHP
  • Infra: AWS, PostgreSQL, Docker, GitLab, Jenkins
  • Delivery: Trunk-based development, Feature Flags, CI/CD
  • AI tooling: Windsurf, Cursor, Claude and more
  • Learn more about our tools and technologies at our Tech Radar: https://tech.talentsconnect.com/

What we offer
  • Remote-first work (within Germany), with flexible hours
  • In-person gatherings ~5x/year in Cologne for team connection and celebration
  • A team that values different working styles, learning paths, and personal situations
  • Virtual Shares Program (VSOP) with flexible participation options
  • Support for professional development, from AI upskilling to mentorship and career coaching
  • A culture of ownership—where you can contribute ideas and shape how we work, together

Inclusive by design
We know that great teams are diverse across many dimensions: gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQIA+ identity, neurodiversity, career path, and more. We encourage you to apply even if you're not sure you meet every requirement. If you believe you could grow into this role, we want to hear from you. We believe seniority comes in many forms—through leadership, deep technical ownership, mentoring, or lived experience across domains. If you see your strengths fitting into our team’s mission, please reach out.
If you have any access needs or need support through the application process, just let us know—we’re happy to help.


Important
  • This role is open to candidates based in Germany
  • Unfortunately, we are not able to sponsor visas at this time

Our Benefits

One of the goals for talentsconnect we have formulated is: "Build the best Home for our own Talents!" We are continuously thinking about what we can do to achieve this. Currently, we are proud of the following points.

Remote & Hybrid sind bei uns Standard

Spätestens seit 2020 stellen wir es allen Mitarbeitenden komplett frei, von wo aus sie arbeiten wollen. Wir haben diese neue Flexibilität lieben gelernt und wollen unsere Kultur bewusst als Hybrid-Modell weiterentwickeln. Es besteht die Möglichkeit, bis zu 3 Monate am Stück und insgesamt 6 Monate pro Jahr aus dem Ausland zu arbeiten.

Team meetings ensure high transparency

Once a month, we come together in Homecoming Friday. In addition, we have our quarterly meetings, where we take a look at the figures and our development. That way, everyone knows where we stand.

Flexible working models

We want to enable our team members to remain an active part of talentsconnect as life evolves around them. We are open to full-time, part-time or other flexible working time models.

Attractive and transparent salary system

We know what the market offers. And we will put together a fair offer for you. This usually consists of a fixed salary, performance-related salary components, an allowance for old-age provision and disability insurance, and virtual shares for executives.

Recruiting made easy - with our JobShop...

Recruiting made easy - with our JobShop...

...the individual job marketing platform for every company.

With the JobShop, companies can optimally offer jobs (themselves) and market them directly with data support. This enables you to generate more qualified applications and to fill positions directly and without depending on headhunters and the like.

The view inside - our CareerShop

In addition to the shortage of skilled workers, the situation in companies is becoming more acute. In addition to jobs that are insanely difficult to fill, your current colleagues are also leaving you? We take preventive measures, point out developments internally and significantly reduce your fluctuation and the resulting costs.

The view inside - our CareerShop
We just dared to do it:

We just dared to do it:

Flexible working models, for everyone! Working hours, work location, and variable compensation dynamically adapt to your life. In May 2022, we issued an addendum to the employment contract for all talentsconnect employees, which applies immediately. Do you think this is in line with the times? - We are looking forward to your application!

  • You decide on the place of work, the working hours and also the weekly hours. Not once and forever, but every quarter: Where do you want to work? How much do you want to work?
  • And once a year: Do you want to convert your bonus, which you receive in virtual shares, into cash on our internal marketplace? Or take some risk with us and participate in the development?
  • We call this our professional "Best Home" - rigid becomes flexible. Your job adapts to your life. Our employees love that. And we all benefit from it.
 
Guiding principles - the talentsconnect mentality

The talentsconnect mindset is composed of four core values - ease, sustainability, trust and customer focus. 

EASE

means making things easier for our customers and friends. Our product is easy to buy, easy to integrate, easy to use and easy to optimize. By offering simple solutions, we give back time and effort to our customers.

SUSTAINABILITY

means being consistent. That means we want to be CO2-neutral and meet the German climate targets for 2050. But sustainability means much more to us. It's also about the way we hire employees, enter into partnerships and align our products for the long term. We place great value on genuine relationships with our employees and want to create an environment in which they are more than just colleagues.

TRUST

It is the one non-negotiable thing that precedes every action and every decision. We see it as the foundation of the other values, as it is an important component of them as well. None of the other values would work if there was no trust.

CUSTOMER FOCUS

For us, customer satisfaction comes first. This is not a matter of a single team, but of all of us, every day. If our customer is not satisfied, we feel bad and strive to change this immediately.

Your contact person
Kai Bogner

Kai Bogner

Senior Recruiting Manager
 

How do we move forward after your application?

Some detailed look

Join us in designing the world's leading technology for Recruiting & Retention.

Apply now

Regardless of whether you are male, female, or diverse: At talentsconnect, you count as a person. Therefore, individual talents, skills, qualifications, and experience are decisive for a successful application with us - but under no circumstances gender, sexuality, age, disabilities, religion, nationality, or political attitudes.

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