This role sits inside a technology practice that delivers enterprise applications for public sector clients, focusing on single-page frontends and robust Java backends. The work combines Angular 21 frontend development with Jakarta EE and Spring Boot backend architecture, and includes event integration with Kafka and relational design on PostgreSQL.
The mission
The programme supports several business domains with an existing portfolio of services exposed as REST APIs, handling medium‑to‑high throughput across modular services. The technical landscape uses hexagonal architecture patterns, Spring Boot for new services, Jakarta EE for established components, Kafka for async messaging and PostgreSQL as the primary RDBMS. Delivery follows Agile Scrum with Jira and a team-sized delivery model of around 8 to 12 engineers.
Day to day you will define and evolve the application architecture, produce designs for new features and propose improvements for the current codebase. You will lead a small group of Java developers, own the code review process and work with product owners to translate business requirements into a coherent technical vision and incremental delivery roadmap.
Your responsibilities
- Lead architecture decisions and produce high‑level and component designs that reduce risk and technical debt while supporting incremental delivery
- Drive implementation of REST APIs using Jakarta EE and Spring Boot, ensuring secure OAuth flows and consistent API contracts
- Mentor and allocate tasks across a team of Java developers, and run regular code review cycles to improve quality and knowledge sharing
- Design database schemas and SQL queries for PostgreSQL, and ensure correct use of JPA and RDBMS best practices
- Integrate asynchronous messaging with Kafka to decouple services and support scalable processing
- Participate in Agile ceremonies, maintain Jira boards, and help the team meet sprint commitments
Your profile
Essential skills
- Proven experience as an application architect, with senior responsibility for design and delivery
- 10+ years of Java experience, strong knowledge of Jakarta EE and Java EE concepts
- 10+ years working with RDBMS, SQL and JPA, practical PostgreSQL experience
- 8+ years building and maintaining REST APIs
- 5+ years with Angular, specifically experience on modern Angular versions such as Angular 21
- 5+ years with Spring or Spring Boot in production services
- Experience implementing OAuth based security (3+ years)
- Familiarity with Kafka for event-driven integration
- Practical experience applying hexagonal architecture or similar domain‑driven structural patterns
- Proven people leadership: assigning work, running code reviews and coaching developers
- Comfortable working in Agile Scrum teams and using Jira for tracking delivery
Languages
- French C1 or Dutch C1 for the primary working language, plus the other national language at B2 minimum
Due to legal obligations on the project, the candidate must be a national of Belgium.