Staff Software Engineer

Rakuten India is the Development Centre and key technology hub of the Rakuten Group, Inc. We enable our businesses with our depth of knowledge in multiple streams of technology such as Mobile and Web Development, Web Analytics, Platform Development, Backend Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and much more. Our unique 24 / 7 support center ensures reliability and sustenance of the Rakuten Ecosystem. With dedicated centres of excellence for Mobile Application Development, Data Analytics, Engineering, DevOps and Information Security, we ensure the success of multiple units of Rakuten Group, Inc. With 1700+ employees and growing, Rakuten India is housed in Crimson House Bangalore in the heart of the city.

We are seeking an exceptionally skilled and highly experienced Staff Engineer - Backend to join our dynamic engineering team. The ideal candidate will be a deep technical expert with a profound passion for architecting, building, and optimizing complex, robust, and scalable backend systems. You will be a critical individual contributor, driving technical excellence, setting architectural direction, and solving the most challenging technical problems across multiple teams or domains. This role requires a blend of hands-on development, visionary technical leadership, and the ability to influence and elevate engineering practices across the organization.

Responsibilities :

• Technical Vision & Strategy : Define and drive the long-term technical vision and strategy for backend systems, aligning with business objectives and product roadmaps.
• Architectural Leadership : Lead the design and evolution of highly scalable, resilient, and performant backend architectures (HLD & LLD) across multiple services or domains. Act as a primary authority on system design and architectural patterns.
• Deep Technical Expertise : Act as a subject matter expert in backend technologies, providing authoritative guidance and hands-on contributions to solve the most complex technical challenges.
• Cross-Functional Influence : Collaborate and influence engineering teams, product managers, and other stakeholders across the organization to ensure technical alignment, foster best practices, and drive technical initiatives.
• System Ownership & Reliability : Take ultimate technical ownership for the reliability, performance, security, and operational excellence of critical backend services.
• Hands-on Development & Prototyping : Design, develop, and implement core components and services in Java, often tackling the most challenging technical problems or prototyping innovative solutions.
• Microservices & Distributed Systems : Drive the evolution and optimization of our microservices architecture, ensuring robust inter-service communication, data consistency, and operational efficiency.
• API Design & Governance : Establish and enforce best practices for API design, development, and governance, ensuring consistency, usability, and security across the platform.
• Database Mastery : Architect and optimize complex database schemas, write highly efficient SQL queries, and make critical decisions regarding database technologies and strategies for large-scale data.
• CI / CD & DevOps Automation : Champion and implement advanced CI / CD strategies and DevOps automation across the backend ecosystem, leveraging tools like Jenkins or GitLab Pipelines for continuous delivery.
• Monitoring, Observability & Incident Response : Design and implement sophisticated monitoring, logging, and tracing solutions using ELK, Prometheus, Grafana, etc., and lead efforts in incident diagnosis and resolution for critical production systems.
• Cloud Architecture & Optimization : Architect and optimize cloud-native solutions on GCP / AWS / Azure, leveraging advanced cloud services for scalability, cost-efficiency, and resilience.
• Technical Mentorship & Evangelism : Mentor senior engineers, share knowledge through technical talks and documentation, and evangelize best practices and new technologies across the engineering organization.
• Code Quality & Standards : Set and maintain high standards for code quality, maintainability, and testability, actively participating in and guiding code reviews for critical components.
• Research & Innovation : Continuously research and evaluate new technologies, tools, and approaches to solve current and future technical challenges, driving innovation within the team and wider organization.

Must-Have Skill Set :

Good-to-Have Skill Set :

Qualifications :

“Rakuten is committed to cultivating and preserving a culture of inclusion and connectedness. We are able to grow and learn better together with a diverse team and inclusive workforce. The collective sum of the individual differences, life experiences, knowledge, innovation, self-expression, and talent that our employees invest in their work represents not only part of our culture, but our reputation and Rakuten’s achievement as well. In recruiting for our team, we welcome the unique contributions that you can bring in terms of their education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veteran’s status, color, religion, disability, sexual orientation and beliefs”