Back-End Engineer

Kpler · Houston

Software EngineeringEngineeringHybridposted 2w ago

At Kpler, we are dedicated to helping our clients navigate complex markets with ease. By simplifying global trade information and providing valuable insights, we empower organisations to make informed decisions in commodities, energy, and maritime sectors.

Since our founding in 2014, we have focused on delivering top-tier intelligence through user-friendly platforms. Our team of over 850 experts from 69 countries works tirelessly to transform intricate data into actionable strategies, ensuring our clients stay ahead in a dynamic market landscape. Join us to leverage cutting-edge innovation for impactful results and experience unparalleled support on your journey to success.

About the Role

As a Full Stack Engineer within our Maritime & Logistics division, you will design, build, and operate systems that power Kpler’s core maritime distribution channels, including our APIs, Snowflake datastores, and real-time Kafka streams. Taking full end-to-end ownership of backend services and streaming pipelines, you will turn complex technical designs into resilient, production-grade applications. Your work ensures maritime data is processed efficiently, made available reliably, and delivered with the performance required by global industry leaders. Collaborating across engineering, product, and platform teams, you will directly drive the evolution and scalability of Kpler's maritime platform.

Key Responsibilities

End-to-End Service Ownership: Own backend services, streaming applications, APIs, and data pipelines from technical design and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and production operation.
Stream & Pipeline Engineering: Build and evolve real-time stream processing applications using Java, Scala, Apache Kafka Streams, or Apache Flink to process data with high performance.
API Development: Design, build, and maintain scalable APIs using TypeScript, Java, and PHP to expose maritime data to internal and external consumers.
Datastore Integration: Develop reliable data pipelines that consume data from Kafka topics and persist it into target datastores like Snowflake.
System Observability: Monitor the health, throughput, consumer lag, and error rates of Kafka-based systems to ensure reliable data delivery.
Incident Management: Investigate production issues, participate in root cause analyses, and implement preventive measures to systematically improve system resilience.
Technical Quality & Mentorship: Drive code reviews, share technical knowledge, reduce technical debt, and mentor junior engineers.

Experience & Background

Core Backend Engineering: 3 to 6 years of professional engineering experience designing, building, and maintaining APIs and backend microservices using languages such as Java, TypeScript, PHP, or Scala.
Data Pipelines & Event Streaming: Demonstrated experience building and operating data pipelines or stream-processing applications in production environments.
Production Systems Operations: Hands-on experience operating production systems, including monitoring, troubleshooting, performance analysis, and incident investigation.
Cloud & Operations: Working knowledge of AWS (e.g., IAM, S3) and experience running containerized services in Kubernetes via GitOps-style workflows.
Education & Methodologies: Bachelor's degree (or equivalent professional experience) in Computer Science or Software Engineering, with strong Agile collaboration skills and fluent English communication.

Nice-to-haves

Streaming Frameworks: Hands-on experience with Apache Flink, Kafka Streams, or building pipelines that consume Kafka topics and persist data across datastores.
Quality & Observability Practice: Familiarity with Test-Driven Development (TDD) and improving distributed system observability using metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting.

We are a dynamic company dedicated to nurturing connections and innovating solutions to tackle market challenges head-on. If you thrive on customer satisfaction and turning ideas into reality, then you’ve found your ideal destination. Are you ready to embark on this exciting journey with us?

We make things happen

We act decisively and with purpose, going the extra mile.

We build together

We foster relationships and develop creative solutions to address market challenges.

We are here to help

We are accessible and supportive to colleagues and clients with a friendly approach.

Our People Pledge

Don’t meet every single requirement? Research shows that women and people of color are less likely than others to apply if they feel like they don’t match 100% of the job requirements. Don’t let the confidence gap stand in your way, we’d love to hear from you! We understand that experience comes in many different forms and are dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team.

Kpler is committed to providing a fair, inclusive and diverse work-environment. We believe that different perspectives lead to better ideas, and better ideas allow us to better understand the needs and interests of our diverse, global community. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives and are an equal opportunity employer.

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