iKnowHow SA is a leading Software & Robotics Solutions company operating internationally. We aim to empower businesses with innovative software and robotics solutions. As a rapidly growing company with a vision for the future, we are committed to fostering a dynamic and collaborative workspace where creativity and technical excellence thrive.
Based in Athens, our team is now expanding rapidly through ambitious projects in defense-grade digital systems, swarm robotics, AI, and custom software solutions.
We are now looking for a skilled and versatile Senior Backend Engineer to design, develop, and maintain secure, scalable backend services across multiple mission-critical platforms in the defense and homeland security domains.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop and maintain back-end of large web-based Java EE/Spring applications with microservices architecture.
- Write clean, maintainable, and testable code following industry best practices.
- Contribute to system design discussions and propose scalable, fault‑tolerant solutions.
- Improve system performance, reliability, and observability.
- Mentor junior and mid‑level engineers, perform code reviews, and guide best practices.
- Advocate for architectural improvements, performance optimizations, and engineering excellence.
- Participate in the technical analysis, documentation, implementation, and integration.
- Work closely with frontend engineers, DevOps, product managers, and QA to deliver end‑to‑end solutions.
- Build and optimize complex database schemas, queries, and stored procedures with PostgreSQL.
- Implement and maintain event‑driven architectures using messaging systems such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar.
- Participate in API design (REST or GraphQL) and integration with external/internal services.
Requirements
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or other related field.
- 5+ years of experience building backend services in Java, using Java EE and/or Spring (Spring Boot/ Modulith).
- Solid experience designing and implementing backend microservices and modulith architectures, including service boundaries, inter-module communication, and dependency management.
- Hands‑on experience with event‑driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pulsar, or similar).
- Strong expertise in SQL, database design, and performance tuning (preferably PostgreSQL).
- Experience developing and consuming REST APIs, with working knowledge of gRPC and GraphQL.
- Experience working with structured data formats, including JSON and XML.
- Experience integrating authentication and authorization solutions, ideally Keycloak, including OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and role-based access control.
- Basic to intermediate knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, with experience using tools such as Jenkins.
- Strong testing mindset (JUnit, integration testing frameworks).
- Expert-level experience with Docker, including container image creation, optimization, and security best practices.
- Hands-on experience deploying and operating containerized backend services on Kubernetes, including the use of Helm charts.
- Excellent problem‑solving skills and attention to detail.
- Strong communication and ability to collaborate in cross‑functional teams.
- Ownership mentality with a proactive approach to improving systems.
Νice to have:
- Familiarity with secure backend development practices, especially for mission-critical or C2 systems, including secure communication, access control, auditing, and logging.
- Understanding of observability concepts such as centralized logging, metrics, and tracing in distributed systems.
Benefits
- Attractive salary package
- Comprehensive health insurance plan and additional benefits
- Career development and growth opportunities through a structured Job Grade System
- Continuous learning opportunities, including personalized training seminars and access to cutting-edge technologies
- Leadership role in a fast-growing company with a strong emphasis on innovation and technical excellence
