Developer - Scala

We are looking for a Backend Developer to join our HCM Localisation engineering team and help evolve a large-scale, cloud-based enterprise product. This role is focused on building and maintaining scalable backend services supporting complex product workflows, integrations, performance improvements, and ongoing platform modernisation.

Please note: This is a hybrid role requiring 3 days per week in our Newcastle office

In this role you'll:

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services using Scala 2.13 and Play Framework in a Pekko-based environment.
• Build clean, testable, and maintainable code using functional programming principles, immutability, pattern matching, and asynchronous programming with Futures.
• Work with MySQL to design efficient data access patterns, optimize queries, tune indexes, and profile database performance.
• Develop, deploy, and support services in AWS, working closely with DevOps and platform teams to ensure reliable delivery.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, Git-based pull request workflows, code reviews, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with frontend engineers, QA, product owners, solution designers, and other backend developers to deliver high-quality product increments.
• Support production stability by investigating issues, improving observability, and continuously reducing technical debt.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Professional backend development experience, ideally in enterprise, SaaS, or cloud-based product environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with Scala, including collections, Futures, immutability, pattern matching, error handling, and clean functional design.
• Commercial experience with Play Framework or comparable JVM backend frameworks; Pekko or Akka experience is highly relevant.
• Strong understanding of relational databases, especially MySQL, with practical knowledge of SQL optimization, indexes, query profiling, and transaction behaviour.
• Experience using Redis or similar technologies for caching, session handling, or performance-sensitive workloads.
• Deep understanding of OOP principles, functional programming, concurrency, the Scala type system, and advanced architectural patterns (e.g., Tagless Final, type classes, effect systems).
• Ability to design and evolve complex distributed systems while promoting engineering best practices across the team.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services and cloud-native delivery practices.
• Good understanding of CI/CD, Git, branching strategies, pull request flows, automated testing, and release practices.
• Ability to work effectively in distributed Agile teams, communicate clearly, and take ownership of complex technical problems.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with Squeryl, Doobie, or similar Scala data access libraries.
• Familiarity with Grafana or Kibana dashboards, alerting, logging, and production observability practices.
• Experience with large distributed systems, horizontal scaling, resilient service design, or high-throughput Play / Pekko applications.
• Previous experience in Payroll, HR, HCM, ERP, compliance-heavy, or localisation-focused product domains.
• Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish language skills would be beneficial, but are not essential.

Ways of Working:

• Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and able to balance new feature development with maintenance, bug fixing, and technical improvement work.
• Proactive in code reviews, design discussions, troubleshooting, and knowledge sharing across the engineering team.
• Strong problem-solving mindset, attention to detail, and willingness to work with an established codebase while helping modernise it over time.