Junior Java Backend Developer

Meerab Group is a Belgium-based IT Consulting and Technology Solutions company, supporting organizations across Belgium and the wider European market. We provide technology Solutions for critical projects across Data & AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity, ServiceNow, SAP, Software Development and Project Management We are looking for a motivated Junior Back-End Software Engineer to join projects supporting the digital transformation of the European Commission. The selected professional will work within an international and multicultural environment, contributing to the development, integration and maintenance of corporate IT solutions used across European Commission services. The assignment will focus primarily on back-end application development, APIs, databases, integrations and scalable software solutions. Projects may evolve over time depending on the needs of the Commission's portfolio. Key Responsibilities • Develop and maintain back-end web applications and services. • Implement core business logic and server-side functionality. • Integrate back-end services with front-end applications. • Design and implement data storage solutions. • Design, develop and maintain RESTful APIs and web services. • Implement authentication and authorisation mechanisms for APIs and services. • Apply security and data protection best practices, including input validation, secure storage, logging and monitoring. • Develop scalable and high-performance software solutions. • Troubleshoot application, data and code-related issues and identify opportunities for improvement. • Perform unit and integration testing, debugging and validation of code changes. • Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines. • Maintain code quality, organisation and integrity. • Contribute to the deployment and basic configuration of cloud services supporting back-end functionality. • Produce and maintain technical documentation. • Ensure solutions meet functional and non-functional requirements. Required Technical Skills The candidate should have experience with: • Java and/or PHP back-end development. • Back-end frameworks such as Spring Boot, Hibernate and/or Node.js. • REST APIs, web services and OpenAPI/Swagger. • Relational databases such as PostgreSQL, Oracle or MySQL. • Complex SQL queries and database design. • Messaging technologies such as JMS, Kafka and/or ActiveMQ. • NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, CouchDB or CosmosDB. • Git workflows, with knowledge of legacy SVN environments. • Docker and/or Kubernetes. • Authentication and authorisation standards such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect and JWT. • Application Performance Monitoring tools such as Dynatrace, Splunk or Elastic APM. • Knowledge of OpenTelemetry for metrics, logs and traces. Required Professional Experience The project requires demonstrable experience of at least: • 3.5 years with Java programming. • 3.5 years designing and developing APIs. • 3.5 years using web service testing tools, such as Postman or ReadyAPI. • 3.5 years working with relational databases, including Oracle, PostgreSQL or MySQL. • 3.5 years working with messaging systems, such as Kafka, JMS or ActiveMQ. • 3.5 years building and running CI/CD pipelines. Cloud & DevOps Experience with cloud technologies for back-end functionality is expected, including areas such as: • Serverless functions • Cloud storage • Managed Kubernetes • CI/CD • Containerisation and deployment Certifications Certifications are not mandatory.