Staff Software Engineer

Department: Software Engineering

Location: Serbia

Compensation: £70,000 / year

Description

Zencargo is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our core feature squad, working with Kotlin and Spring Boot to lead building and scaling critical capabilities across our digital freight forwarding platform.

As a Staff Software Engineer in this team, you’ll be responsible for delivering high-impact features that sit at the heart of our customer experience, from booking and tracking shipments to streamlining operations for supply chain teams. You’ll lead designing and building robust, scalable services with a focus on quality, performance, and maintainability.

This is a hands-on role where you’ll own complex technical decisions, lead by example in code and design discussions, and support your teammates through mentorship and collaboration. You’ll work closely with Product, Design, and other Engineering squads to ensure we're building the right solutions in the right way, always keeping the needs of our users front and center.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, implementation and delivery of complex projects and features aligned with team and company goals.
• Write high-quality, maintainable and well-documented code, setting a standard for others on the team.
• Identify and drive improvements to technical systems, processes and team practices to enhance performance and quality.
• Drive technical discussions, communicate trade-offs effectively and make decisions with a focus on scalability, performance, and long-term impact.
• Collaborate effectively with cross-functional partners and other engineering teams to deliver impactful solutions.
• Mentor peers through pairing, feedback and knowledge sharing to support their technical and professional growth.
• Contribute to a healthy, inclusive team culture by role-modelling Zencargo’s values and building strong working relationships.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Professional experience with Kotlin (or Java with a strong willingness to work in Kotlin)
• Solid understanding and hands-on experience with Spring Boot 3 for building scalable, maintainable backend services
• Strong knowledge of RESTful APIs, microservice architecture, and integration patterns
• Experience working with relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL or MySQL) and designing efficient, maintainable schemas
• Experience with high throughput event streaming services such as Kafka or RabbitMQ
• Deep understanding of automated testing approaches (unit, integration, E2E)
• Understanding of monitoring and observability practices, including logs, metrics, and alerts
• Knowledge of system performance, scalability, and technical debt and how to address them
• Comfortable leading discussions around technical trade-offs, design decisions, and long-term code maintainability
• Strong collaborator who can work effectively with product managers, designers, and other engineers to deliver features that align with business goals
• Enjoy mentoring peers through code reviews, pairing, and informal guidance
• Experience working in an agile delivery environment, contributing to planning and estimation
• Proactive, ownership-driven approach to delivering high-quality software
• Able to articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders