Senior Software Engineer

Kunai builds full-stack technology solutions for banks, credit and payment networks, infrastructure providers, and their customers. The company is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to support a digital payments modernization program, developing and modernizing mission-critical payment systems across legacy and cloud-native infrastructure. The role includes architecture, full-stack development, identity, cloud platform engineering, performance testing, and CI/CD responsibilities.

Responsibilities:

• Apply domain-driven design to define bounded contexts, domain models, and aggregate boundaries for card-network reference data — establishing a ubiquitous language shared across engineering and business stakeholders
• Develop and harden a Spring Boot / JPA / PostgreSQL Aurora service with Liquibase-managed schema migrations, a Drools-based business rules engine, and scheduled batch jobs — including designing authorization and data-access controls from the ground up where none exist today
• Design and own integration workflows and routing using Apache Camel (or equivalent), orchestrating multi-step, stateful operations such as request intake, validation, approval, and publication pipelines
• Develop an event-driven backbone using Kafka — topic/schema design, producer/consumer reliability patterns, and integration with the rules engine and workflow layer
• Develop a micro-frontend application (Next.js/React/TypeScript) as an independently deployable system, and design its convergence path into the card network's future shared micro-frontend shell
• Own the OAuth2/OIDC identity architecture end-to-end — provider integration (Okta), JWT/token validation strategy, session/revocation design, and trust-boundary decisions across environments
• Design and govern AWS IAM policy, S3, and CloudFront architecture across multiple environments — this is not config-following; you're expected to set the standard
• Lead deployment on the organization's internal static cloud hosting platform
• Drive test-driven development practice across the team and build out continuous testing/automation pipelines (unit, contract, integration, and end-to-end) as part of CI/CD
• Design and execute enterprise-grade performance testing strategies for payment processing services, defining frameworks, tooling, and success criteria from the ground up
• Identify performance bottlenecks across legacy and modern service layers and drive measurable improvements through analysis and targeted optimization
• Instrument and validate services running on Java, Oracle, Tomcat, and WebSphere as well as modern workloads running on PostgreSQL and OpenShift
• Collaborate with backend engineers to ensure scalability requirements are met across all environments prior to release
• Translate performance findings into clear recommendations for engineering leads and stakeholders
• Build and maintain full-stack backend services supporting card network integration, working primarily in Java with PostgreSQL and OpenShift Container Platform (OCP)
• Contribute to application modernization efforts, migrating and re-platforming services from legacy infrastructure to cloud-native environments
• Leverage AI-assisted development tooling (including GitHub Copilot) to improve development velocity and code quality
• Participate in code reviews, architectural discussions, and cross-team technical planning sessions
• PCI data purging pipelines and event-driven architecture patterns including token removal and event consumption
• Work with event-driven services running on OpenShift and Oracle and PostgreSQL backends to support data lifecycle and compliance requirements
• Serve as a flexible, senior contributor across teams where engineering depth and experience are needed most

Requirements:

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, primarily in Java
• Strong working knowledge of relational databases — Oracle and/or PostgreSQL required
• Experience deploying and operating services in containerized environments (OpenShift, Kubernetes, or equivalent)
• Experience with Spring Boot/JPA, business rules engines (e.g., Drools), and integration/orchestration frameworks (e.g., Apache Camel)
• Working knowledge of Kafka or similar event-streaming platforms, including topic/schema design and producer/consumer reliability patterns
• Practical experience applying domain-driven design — bounded contexts, aggregates, and ubiquitous language — in a production system
• Demonstrated ownership of authorization/data-access control design, not just implementation against an existing model
• Experience designing and governing cloud IAM, storage, and CDN architecture (AWS IAM, S3, CloudFront or equivalents) at a standards-setting level
• Experience with modern frontend frameworks (Next.js/React/TypeScript), including micro-frontend architectures and independently deployable frontend systems
• Experience owning OAuth2/OIDC identity flows end-to-end, including provider integration (e.g., Okta), token validation, and session/revocation design
• At least one enterprise-level performance testing engagement — defining strategy, selecting tooling, executing tests, and presenting findings
• Experience with performance profiling, load testing, and bottleneck resolution in high-throughput, distributed systems
• Ability to design logical, streamlined test frameworks from scratch and operate with minimal guidance
• Demonstrated experience driving test-driven development practices across a team
• Experience building continuous testing/automation pipelines (unit, contract, integration, and end-to-end) as part of CI/CD
• Understanding of PCI compliance requirements and secure data handling practices
• Familiarity with event-driven architecture patterns and OpenShift-based eventing
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in large, matrixed program environments with multiple teams and stakeholders
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to translate technical complexity for non-technical audiences
• Comfortable operating in environments with evolving requirements and ambiguity
• At this time we are unable to provide sponsorship for this role
• Bachelor's Degree, in lieu of a degree, demonstrating in addition to the minimum years of experience required for the role, three years of specialized training and/or progressively responsible work experience in technology for each missing year of college is required
• hands-on experience with PostgreSQL Aurora and Liquibase-managed migrations a strong plus
• Familiarity with legacy enterprise application servers — Tomcat and/or WebSphere experience a plus
• Background in digital payments, card processing, or financial services technology strongly preferred
• Experience with PGLogical or PostgreSQL logical replication
• Exposure to AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot or Claude)
• Prior work on bank or card network integration programs
• Experience working in segregated or air-gapped development environments