Senior Java Backend Engineer

Project overview

Contribute to a safer, more accessible, and sustainable Netherlands by building reliable real-time data products. At the National Data Portal for Road Traffic (NDW), we process large amounts of real-time traffic data every minute. We use this data for traffic management, policy information, and data services for public and private parties. As a Senior Java Engineer in our DevOps team, you will build the core of our data platform: robust and scalable backend services that process millions of traffic messages per day. You will design and develop event-driven microservices using Apache Kafka, Avro, and Spring Boot.

This will allow you to make a direct contribution to reliable data products of great societal importance.

What will you do?

As a Senior Java Backend Engineer, you will strengthen our multidisciplinary DevOps team. You are the specialist bringing in-depth knowledge of Java, Kafka, event-driven architecture, and streaming data. Together, we will build a valuable, scalable, and reliable real-time data platform where Apache Kafka, Avro, Spring Boot, and Kubernetes play a central role. As a team member, you will design, build, and maintain microservices that transform, enrich, and make traffic data available.

You will contribute to data modeling, schema evolution, and architecture, and participate in the continuous professionalization of our platform. In addition to backend activities, you will also contribute to building and maintaining our front-end Angular application that visualizes data streams. This forms a small but existing part of the tasks.

Responsibilities

The tech stack of our team

What makes this role unique?

What do you bring?

What do we value in you?

Work environment & team

You will work within a multidisciplinary DevOps team with a strong focus on real-time data processing. The team has a lot of technical freedom and works closely with architects, developers, and data consumers to deliver high-quality data products. The data streams you work on are business-critical for NDW and our partners.

About NDW and Rijkswaterstaat

NDW is a collaboration of governments that collects, verifies, and makes traffic data available. The NDW systems form a vital part of traffic management in the Netherlands. We work closely with road authorities, policymakers, and market parties. Rijkswaterstaat is part of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water. For over 225 years, we have been working towards a safe, livable, and accessible Netherlands. More information: www.ndw.nu

• developing and maintaining backend services and microservices in Java and Spring Boot
• building event-driven solutions for processing real-time traffic data with Kafka
• developing functionalities for data processing, enrichment, and distribution of data
• building/maintaining the front-end application that visualizes data streams
• realizing scalable, maintainable, and well-testable software solutions
• collaborating with colleagues on CI/CD, monitoring, and platform improvements
• monitoring and improving software quality and technical standards
• contributing to discussions on architecture, technical innovation, and process optimization
• further developing knowledge in the areas of streaming data, data modeling, and distributed systems
• participating in on-call duty once every five weeks (with compensation)
• Java 21+ with Spring Boot 3 and 4
• An event-driven architecture based on Strimzi Kafka with Kafka Streams and Kafka Connect, and RabbitMQ
• PostgreSQL
• Observability based on Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, and OpenTelemetry
• Kubernetes in Azure AKS
• You work with socially relevant data that directly contributes to traffic safety and sustainability in the Netherlands
• You are not a cog in a large machine, but a key figure in a multidisciplinary team: your choices have a direct impact
• You have the opportunity to work with a modern event-driven stack
• You combine software engineering craftsmanship with the challenge of real-time streaming data on a national scale
• You have the space to experiment with Claude, new tools, frameworks, and methods to further professionalize our way of working
• At least a completed university education in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science or Software Engineering)
• At least 5 years of experience with Java and Spring Boot in production environments in the last 10 years
• At least 2 years of hands-on experience with event-driven architectures based on Apache Kafka and Kafka Streams in the last 5 years
• Experience working in Kubernetes environments (preferably AKS)
• Strong focus on clean code, testability, and scalability
• You demonstrate seniority through your technical depth, your ability to oversee complexity, and your role as a sparring partner in the team
• Experience or affinity with Angular
• Experience with Azure DevOps pipelines in combination with ArgoCD
• Experience with Agile working, preferably in a SAFe environment
• You combine technical craftsmanship with a pragmatic attitude: you know when perfection is needed and when good enough is better
• You think in systems and chains, not just in individual components: you understand that our data streams are only valuable if the whole is robust
• You enjoy sharing your knowledge and thus elevate not only the code but also your colleagues to a higher level
• You possess a positive attitude and a healthy sense of humor
• You have an eye for quality and simplicity: you don't make things unnecessarily complex
• You feel at home in an environment where freedom and responsibility go hand in hand

Project details

• Start: 2026-11-30T23:00:00
• Location: Utrecht, NL
• Languages: Dutch