Lead Backend Engineer

At GFiber, we believe that great internet has the power to drive innovation, strengthen communities, enable the impossible, and do all the everyday things that make all of our world go round. And the job of creating better internet is never done - so we’re growing! Our team is committed to building a place where people who want to make a difference can grow their careers and find their spot to belong. GFiber is an Alphabet company that brings Google Fiber and Google Fiber Webpass internet services to homes and businesses across the United States. Our teams are expanding as we connect more cities and people to exceptional internet. _The application window will be open until at least_ **_July 12th, 2026_** _. This opportunity will remain online based on business needs which may be before or after the specified date._ **_This role is not eligible for immigration sponsorship._** **Role Description** In this role you will design and develop scalable, efficient, and secure backend services using Spring Boot and JVM languages (preferably Kotlin). This role requires a strong understanding of microservice architecture, RESTful APIs, design patterns, and distributed systems, along with the ability to lead technical initiatives, mentor team members, and drive architectural decisions. As a lead, you will play a critical role in shaping the backend infrastructure, ensuring high performance, scalability, and reliability to support our growing business needs. **In this role, you'll:** + Lead the design and implementation of robust, scalable, and maintainable backend systems using microservice architecture principles. Define and enforce best practices for system design, including scalability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization. + Build and maintain high-quality backend services and RESTful APIs using Spring Boot and JVM languages (Kotlin and Java). Write clean, efficient, and testable code adhering to modern software engineering standards. + Design systems to handle high traffic and large datasets, leveraging distributed systems concepts such as load balancing, caching (e.g., Redis, Memcached), and message queues (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ). + Work closely with frontend developers, DevOps engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders to deliver end-to-end solutions that meet business requirements. + Create and maintain technical documentation for architecture, APIs, and processes to facilitate knowledge sharing and onboarding. + Deploy and manage containerized services on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or Cloud Run. + Implement deep tracking and monitoring for non-deterministic AI agent behaviors using Google Cloud Observability (Stackdriver) or OpenTelemetry. **At a minimum, we would like you to have:** + Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information technology, a similar engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience. + 5 years of software design and full stack development experience in Java and/or Kotlin. + 2 years of experience with API development for customer-facing applications. + Experience working with, designing, and debugging distributed systems & microservices **It's preferred if you have:** + Experience with the Backend-for-a-Frontend design pattern. + Proven experience building applications that interact with Large Language Models (Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic) via Vertex AI or direct APIs. + Familiarity with agentic design patterns, including ReAct (Reasoning and Acting) loops, semantic routing, and guardrails against prompt injection/hallucinations + Experience using AI coding tools like AntiGravity, Claude, Cursor etc + Hands-on production experience deploying and managing services inside **Google Cloud Platform (GCP)** The US base salary range for this full-time position is between $176,800 - $194,500 + bonus + benefits. As pay varies by location, your recruiter will share more about the specific salary range for your targeted location during the hiring process. \#LI-DNI GFiber is committed to equal opportunity employment regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, citizenship, marital status, disability or Veteran status. Disclosure is voluntary, and this information will be kept confidential in compliance with Google's Candidate Privacy Policy. (https://careers.google.com/privacy-policy/) For more information please refer to our Equal Employment Opportunity Policy (https://careers.google.com/eeo/) and the EEOC's "Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal" (PDF) (https://careers.google.com/jobs/dist/legal/EEOC\_KnowYourRights\_10\_20.pdf) . It's important to us to create an accessible, inclusive workplace for everyone. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please let us know by completing our accommodations for applicants form (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdssMbqAfgzQyXmBStjjc-OOg64CssJRQf5\_yWGEBClZZrkpw/viewform?resourcekey=0-CxawQc0qPzP7wkZuem4M3A) . Our candidate accommodations team will then connect with you to confidentially discuss your options.