Java back end developer

Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Sector: Technology, Information & Media

Company Size: 500 - 1,000 Employees

Employment: Full-Time, Permanent

Experience: 10 - 14 Years (Engineering Leadership)

Level: Engineering Manager / Group EM

ABOUT THIS MANDATE :

Recruiting Bond has been exclusively retained by one of India's most prominent and well-established digital platform organisations operating at the intersection of Technology, Information, and Media to identify and place an exceptional Engineering Manager who can lead engineering teams through an enterprise-wide AI adoption and digital transformation agenda.

This is a high-impact, hands-on leadership role at the nexus of people, product, and technology. The organisation is executing one of the most ambitious AI transformation programmes in its sector and this Engineering Manager will be a core driver of that change. You will lead multiple squads, own engineering delivery end-to-end, embed AI tooling and practices into the team's DNA, and shape the engineering culture of tomorrow.

We are seeking leaders who code when it matters, who build systems and teams with equal conviction, and who view AI not as a trend but as a fundamental shift in how great software is built.

THE OPPORTUNITY AT A GLANCE :

AI-First Engineering Culture :

• Own AI adoption across your squads - from LLM tooling integration to automation-first delivery workflows. Make AI a default, not an afterthought.

Hands-On Engineering Leadership :

• Stay close to the code. Lead architecture reviews, unblock engineers, and set the technical bar - not just the management agenda.

People & Org Builder :

• Grow engineers into leaders. Build squads of 615 across functions. Drive hiring, career frameworks, and a culture of psychological safety.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES :

1. Hands-On Technical Engagement :

• Remain deeply embedded in the technical work participate in design reviews, architecture decisions, and critical code reviews
• Set and uphold the engineering quality bar : performance benchmarks, security standards, test coverage, and release quality
• Provide technical direction on backend platform strategy, API design, service decomposition, and data architecture
• Identify and resolve systemic technical debt and architectural risks across team-owned services
• Unblock engineers by diving into complex problems debugging, pair programming, and system analysis when it matters
• Own key technical decisions in collaboration with Tech Leads and Principal Engineers; balance pragmatism with long-term sustainability

2. AI Adoption, Integration & Transformation (2026 Mandate) :

• Define and execute the team's AI adoption roadmap - from developer tooling to product-facing AI features
• Champion the integration of GenAI tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT) across the full engineering workflow coding, testing, documentation, incident response
• Embed LLM-powered capabilities into the product : recommendation engines, intelligent search, conversational interfaces, content generation, and predictive systems
• Lead evaluation and adoption of AI-assisted SDLC practices : automated code review, AI-generated test suites, intelligent observability, and anomaly detection
• Partner with Data Science and ML Platform teams to productionise ML models with robust MLOps pipelines
• Build team literacy in prompt engineering, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), and AI agent frameworks
• Create an experimentation culture : run structured AI pilots, measure productivity impact, and scale what works
• Stay ahead of the AI tooling landscape and advise senior leadership on strategic AI investments and engineering implications

3. People Leadership & Team Development :

• Lead, manage, and grow squads of 6 - 15 engineers across seniority levels (L2 through L6 / Junior through Staff)
• Conduct structured 1 : 1s, career growth conversations, and development planning with every direct report
• Design and execute personalised AI upskilling programmes ensure every engineer develops practical AI fluency by end of 2026
• Build and maintain a high-performance team culture : clarity of ownership, accountability, fast feedback loops, and psychological safety
• Drive performance management fairly and rigorously recognise top performers, manage underperformance constructively
• Lead technical hiring end-to-end : define job requirements, conduct bar-raising interviews, and make data-driven hire decisions
• Contribute to engineering career frameworks and level definitions in partnership with the VP / Director of Engineering

4. Engineering Delivery & Execution Excellence :

• Own end-to-end delivery for multiple product squads from planning and scoping through production release and post-launch stability
• Implement and refine agile delivery frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, Shape Up) calibrated to squad needs and product cadence
• Drive predictable delivery : maintain healthy sprint velocity, manage WIP limits, and ensure dependency resolution across teams.
• Establish and own engineering KPIs : DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, MTTR, change failure rate), uptime SLOs, and velocity trends
• Lead incident management : build blameless post-mortem culture, own RCA processes, and drive systemic reliability improvements
• Balance technical debt repayment with feature velocity negotiate prioritisation transparently with Product leadership

5. Strategic Leadership & Cross-Functional Influence :

• Serve as the primary engineering partner for Product, Design, Data, and Business stakeholders translate ambiguity into executable engineering plans
• Participate in quarterly roadmap planning, capacity forecasting, and OKR definition for engineering teams
• Represent engineering in leadership forums articulate technical constraints, risks, and opportunities in business terms
• Contribute to org-wide engineering strategy : platform investments, build-vs-buy decisions, and shared infrastructure priorities
• Build relationships across geographies (Mumbai HQ + distributed teams) to maintain alignment and delivery cohesion
• Act as a culture carrier and ambassador for engineering excellence, innovation, and responsible AI use

AI TRANSFORMATION LEADERSHIP 2026 EXPECTATIONS :

In 2026, Engineering Managers at this organisation are expected to be active architects of AI transformation not passive observers. The following outlines the specific AI leadership expectations for this role :

AI Developer Productivity

• Drive measurable uplift in developer velocity through AI tooling adoption. Target : 30%+ reduction in code review cycle time and 40%+ increase in test coverage automation by Q3 2026.

LLM & GenAI Product Features

• Own delivery of GenAI-powered product capabilities : intelligent content, semantic search, personalisation, and conversational UX in production, at scale.

AI-Augmented Observability

• Implement AI-driven monitoring and anomaly detection pipelines. Reduce MTTR by leveraging predictive alerting, intelligent runbooks, and auto-remediation scripts.

Team AI Fluency :

• Build mandatory AI literacy across all engineering levels.
• Every engineer understands prompt engineering basics, AI ethics guardrails, and responsible AI deployment practices.

Responsible AI Governance :

• Partner with Security, Legal, and Data Privacy to ensure all AI deployments meet compliance standards, bias mitigation requirements, and explainability benchmarks.

TECHNOLOGY STACK & DOMAIN FAMILIARITY REQUIRED :

• Languages: Java/ Go/ Python/ Node.js /PHP /Rust (must be hands-on in at least 2)
• Cloud: AWS / GCP / Azure (multi-cloud exposure strongly preferred)
• AI & GenAI: OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini APIs /LangChain /LlamaIndex / RAG / Vector DBs / GitHub
• Copilot: Cursor /Hugging Face
• Containers: Docker /Kubernetes /Helm /Service Mesh (Istio / Linkerd)
• Databases: PostgreSQL /MongoDB / Redis / Cassandra / Elasticsearch / Pinecone (Vector DB)
• Messaging: Apache Kafka /RabbitMQ /AWS SQS/SNS /Google Pub/Sub
• MLOps & DataOps: MLflow /Kubeflow / SageMaker / Vertex AI /Airflow /dbt
• Observability: Datadog /Prometheus /Grafana /OpenTelemetry / Jaeger /ELK Stack
• CI/CD & IaC: GitHub Actions ArgoCD / Jenkins / Terraform /Ansible /Backstage (IDP)

QUALIFICATIONS & CANDIDATE PROFILE :

Education :

• B.E. / B.Tech or M.E. / M.Tech from a Tier-I or Tier-II Institution - CS, IS, ECE, AI/ML streams strongly preferred
• Demonstrated engineering depth and leadership impact may complement institution pedigree

Experience :

• 10 to 14 years of progressive engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a formal Engineering Manager or equivalent people-leadership role
• Proven track record of managing and scaling engineering teams (615+ engineers) in a fast-growing SaaS or digital product environment
• Hands-on backend engineering background must be able to read, write, and critique production code
• Direct experience driving AI/ML feature delivery or AI tooling adoption within engineering organisations
• Exposure across start-up, mid-size, and large-scale product organisations, preferred adaptability is a core requirement
• Strong CS fundamentals: distributed systems, algorithms, system design, and software architecture
• Demonstrated career stability minimum of 2 years of average tenure per organisation.

The Ideal Engineering Manager in 2026 :

• Leads with context, not control, empowers engineers while maintaining accountability and quality
• Is fluent in both people language and technical language, switches registers naturally with engineers and executives alike
• Sees AI as a force multiplier for the team, not a threat. Actively experiments with and advocates for AI tooling
• Measures success by team outcomes, not personal output. Takes pride in what the team ships, not what they build alone
• Creates feedback loops obsessively between product and engineering, between seniors and juniors, between metrics and decisions
• Has strong opinions, loosely held, brings conviction to discussions but updates on evidence
• Invests in engineering excellence as seriously as delivery velocity knows that quality and speed are not opposites

WHY THIS ROLE STANDS APART :

AI Transformation at Scale :

• Lead one of the most significant AI adoption programmes in India's digital media sector.
• Our decisions will shape how hundreds of engineers work in 2026 and beyond.

Hands-On & Strategic Balance :

• A rare EM role that actively encourages technical depth.
• Stay close to the code while owning the people agenda - the best of both worlds.

Established Platform, Real Scale :

• 5001,000 engineers, proven product-market fit, and the org maturity to execute.
• This is not a greenfield startup gamble it is a serious company with serious ambition.

Clear Leadership Growth Path :

• A visible, direct path toward Director / VP of Engineering.
• Senior leadership is invested in growing its next generation of technology executives.

🚀 We’re Hiring: Senior Python Backend Developer 🚀

📍 Location: Baner, Pune (Work from Office)

💰 Compensation: ₹6 LPA

🕑 Experience Required: Minimum 2 years as a Python Backend Developer

About Us

Foto Owl AI is a fast-growing product-based company headquartered in Baner, Pune.

We specialize in:

⚡ Hyper-personalized fan engagement

🤖 AI-powered real-time photo sharing

📸 Advanced media asset management

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Python Backend Developer, you’ll play a key role in designing, building, and deploying scalable backend systems that power our cutting-edge platforms.

Architect and develop complex, secure, and scalable backend services

Build and maintain APIs & data pipelines for web, mobile, and AI-driven platforms

Optimize SQL & NoSQL databases for high performance

Manage AWS infrastructure (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, CloudWatch, etc.)

Implement observability, monitoring, and security best practices

Collaborate cross-functionally with product & AI teams

Mentor junior developers and conduct code reviews

Troubleshoot and resolve production issues with efficiency

What We’re Looking For

✅ Strong expertise in Python backend development

✅ Solid knowledge of Data Structures & Algorithms

✅ Hands-on experience with SQL (PostgreSQL/MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis, etc.)

✅ Proficiency in RESTful APIs & Microservice design

✅ Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud-native systems

✅ Experience managing AWS-based deployments

Why Join Us?

At Foto Owl AI, you’ll be part of a passionate team building world-class media tech products used in sports, events, and fan engagement platforms. If you love scalable backend systems, real-time challenges, and AI-driven products, this is the place for you.

Core Experience:

•Experience in Core Java, J2EE, Spring/Spring Boot, Hibernate, Spring REST, Linux, JUnit, Maven, Design Patterns.

• Sound knowledge of RDBMS like MySQL/Postgres, including schema design.

• Exposure to Linux environment.

• Exposure to Docker and Kubernetes.

• Basic Knowledge of Cloud Services of AWS, Azure, GCP cloud provider.

• Proficient in general programming, logic, problem solving, data structures & algorithms

• Good analytical, grasping and problem-solving skills.

Secondary Skills:

• Agile / Scrum Development Experience preferred.

• Comfortable working with a microservices architecture and familiarly with NoSql solutions.

• Experience in Test Driven Development.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Hands-on skills in configuration of popular build tools, like Maven and Gradle

• Good knowledge of testing frameworks such as JUnit.

• Good knowledge of coding standards, source code organization and packaging/deploying.

• Good knowledge of current and emerging technologies and trends.

Job Responsibilities:

• Design, Development and Delivery of Java based enterprise-grade applications.

• Ensure best practices, quality and consistency within various design and development phases.

• Develop, test, implement and maintain application software working with established processes.

Work with QA and help them for test automation

• Work with Technical Writer and help them documenting the features you have developing.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s / master’s degree in computer science or information technology or related field

Job Responsibilities

✓ Perform the role of Technical Lead on assigned projects to drive solution design (especially backend) and API services development.

✓ Be the thought leader and champion for above mentioned technologies.

✓ Drive technical analysis for new projects including planning and driving proof-of-concepts, if needed.

✓ Drive tasks related to backend development by providing architectural and technical leadership to mid-tier and database developers.

✓ Conduct peer reviews as the lead into Git to confirmed that developed code meets acceptable standards and guidelines.

✓ Work closely with the rest of the leads, mid-tier development, front-end developers, database developers, etc. to ensure end-to-end integrity of the solution being developed.

✓ Work closely with the rest of the tech leads and senior engineering leadership team to ensure reuse where applicable to increase productivity and throughput.

✓ Conduct technical interview to staff open positions in the backend team.

✓ Delegate work and assignments to team members

✓ Collaborate with their team to identify and fix technical problems

✓ Analyze users' needs and then finding applications to serve them

✓ Drive assigned tasks related to SOC 2 certification and ensure compliance to defined controls for areas under lead’s purview.

✓ Guiding their team through technical issues and challenges

✓ Prepare Technical design documents which would help the team to understand the technical flow

✓ Active participation in customer calls especially discussions related to Technical/Architectural and provide inputs.

Required Experience: 

✓ Backend Lead around 14 years of experience

✓ Server less Computing Architecture

✓ NodeJS, MySQL, Jenkins, Python, GitLab Technologies

✓ Good knowledge of AWS Cloud

✓ Full cycle AWS implementation experience

✓ Project experience in development and maintenance support for AWS web service and Cloudbased implementations

✓ Experience leading teams of up to 10 + professionals

Ability to manage multiple tasks and projects in a fast-moving environment 

Educational Qualifications: 

Engineering graduate or B. Tech/MCA with relevant major subjects like Computer Science

• Bachelor/Master's in computer science or relevant fields
• 10+ years of Relevant Experience
• Strong sense of ownership
• Excellent Java and object-oriented development skills
• Experience in building and scaling microservices
• Strong Knowledge in RDBMS & NoSQL databases
• Strong problem-solving skills, technical troubleshooting and diagnosing
• Expected to be a role model for young engineers, have a strong sense of code quality, and enforce code quality within the team
• Excellent understanding of Debugging performance and optimization techniques
• Experience in Java, Mongo, MySQL, AWS technologies, ELK stack, Spring boot, Kafka
• Experience in developing any large scale Experience in cloud technologies
• Demonstrated ability to deliver in a fast-paced environment

• Build an algorithm for artist to detect if their music was violating copy right infringement laws

• Successfully won Techcrunch Disrupt

• Optimized an algorithm that holds the current world record for Weisman Scores