Senior Software Engineer

Job Title: Senior Full-stack Software Engineer

Location:
Brussels, Belgium Language: ENG Duration: Long Term (Initial Duration 120 man-days + Extension Possible) EU Candidates only/
- Context: Project Description
• DG Environment, Unit A3, in partnership with other Commission services and stakeholders, provides high-quality corporate solutions and information systems for its policy units, enabling the successful implementation of the Commission's Digital Transformation and EU policies.
• The solutions include systems supporting Member States' reporting obligations to the European Commission, licensing systems allowing the import or export of dangerous materials, data analysis and visualisation products, and registry systems for products complying with specific legislative requirements.
• The solution assignment may change over time according to the portfolio, project, and service needs.
• The service provider is expected to carry out the tasks assigned by the relevant project and service managers, in line with the mission and operational needs of the IT Implementation and IT Governance Unit. Responsibilities
• Analyse functional and non-functional requirements and translate them into appropriate technical solutions.
• Design maintainable application components and contribute to architectural and technical-design decisions.
• Review existing code and perform code reviews of contributions from other developers.
• Develop front-end application architecture and user interfaces.
• Design user interactions on web applications.
• Develop back-end applications and services.
• Implement core business logic and data-processing logic.
• Design and implement data ingestion, transformation, validation, storage, querying, and dissemination processes.
• Design and maintain data models for relational, analytical, and geospatial data.
• Integrate applications with databases, data platforms, external services, and other information systems.
• Develop solutions for processing and exposing structured and semi-structured data through APIs, applications, and analytical services.
• Apply secure development practices, including input validation, authentication and authorisation, secrets management, dependency management, protection against common web vulnerabilities, secure logging, and appropriate handling of sensitive data.
• Ensure web applications are optimised for performance and functionality across different browsers and devices.
• Design responsive applications.
• Design and develop APIs, including REST and SOAP interfaces.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of scalable and reusable software components and services.
• Maintain code integrity, modularity, and organisation.
• Write clean, maintainable, and functional code across the front-end and back-end.
• Write automated unit, integration, and, where appropriate, end-to-end tests.
• Design and optimise database queries, data-access patterns, and data-processing workflows.
• Use application monitoring, structured logging, metrics, and tracing to diagnose production and non-production issues.
• Participate in deployment, release, configuration, and operational-support activities.
• Diagnose application, database, data-processing, integration, infrastructure, and performance issues across the full technology stack.
• Design applications with appropriate consideration for security, maintainability, observability, scalability, performance, and operational resilience.
• Compile and analyse data, processes, configuration, dependencies, logs, and code to troubleshoot problems and identify areas for improvement.
• Perform unit and integration testing, debug, fix, and validate code changes.
• Deliver solutions that fulfil functional and non-functional requirements and align with user expectations.
• Write and maintain technical, architectural, API, and operational documentation.
• Develop and maintain features across the entire stack, from user interfaces and API consumption to server-side business logic, data processing, and database interactions.
• Deploy and operate applications on cloud and containerised platforms using automated CI/CD processes.
• Configure and maintain application infrastructure and deployment artefacts using infrastructure-as-code and configuration-management approaches where appropriate.
• Work with container-orchestration platforms and associated networking, storage, configuration, scaling, and monitoring capabilities.
• Contribute to the implementation and operation of cloud-based data-processing and analytical solutions.
• Ensure coherent integration between front-end, back-end, APIs, databases, data-processing components, cloud infrastructure, and deployment environments.
• Work effectively with other developers, architects, data specialists, DevOps engineers, security specialists, and business stakeholders. Required Qualifications
- EQF Level 7: University degree corresponding to Level 7 of the European Qualifications Framework, typically a master's level or five years of higher education, and a minimum of 15 years of IT professional experience. OR
- EQF Level 6: University degree corresponding to Level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework, typically a bachelor's level or three years of higher education, and a minimum of 17 years of IT professional experience. Required Professional Experience
• At least 7 years of professional software development experience.
• At least 5 years of recent hands-on experience developing Java applications with IoC frameworks such as Spring.
• At least 5 years of recent experience with relational databases and SQL.
• At least 2 years of recent hands-on experience developing maintainable, responsive, and user-friendly web interfaces.
• Demonstrated experience developing and integrating REST APIs.
• Demonstrated experience with CI/CD, Docker, and cloud/container-based deployment.
• Demonstrated professional experience in designing and implementing end-to-end data solutions, including data ingestion, transformation, validation, storage, querying, and dissemination across relational, analytical, and geospatial platforms, with integration through APIs and reusable digital services.
• At least 2 years of recent experience personally performing full-stack development, covering all the elements above simultaneously.
• Proven practical experience working within Agile/Scrum or comparable software development methodologies.
• At least 5 years of demonstrated professional experience working with information systems and data supporting the implementation of regulatory policies, involving multiple countries, public authorities, and economic operators, of which at least 2 years must support the implementation of environmental legislation. Required Technical Skills and Technologies
• Strong hands-on experience in Java, Spring, and Spring Boot, including development of REST APIs, server-side business logic, and data-access components.
• Strong hands-on experience with at least one modern JavaScript/TypeScript front-end framework, preferably Angular.
• Strong knowledge of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript/TypeScript, and responsive web design.
• Strong experience with relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL and/or Oracle, including SQL, JPA, data modelling, and query optimisation.
• Demonstrated experience in designing and implementing data-processing solutions, including data ingestion, transformation, validation, storage, querying, and dissemination.
• Experience working with complex and heterogeneous datasets and integrating data across applications, databases, and analytical platforms.
• Experience with analytical and data-processing technologies, preferably including Python, SQL-based analytical platforms, and/or distributed data-processing frameworks.
• Experience with geospatial data and technologies, including spatial databases, geographic data formats, and/or map and geospatial services, where relevant.
• Practical experience with Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment of applications to containerised and cloud environments.
• Practical experience with Kubernetes or equivalent container-orchestration technologies.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and services, preferably including networking, storage, identity and access management, secrets management, monitoring, and managed data services.
• Experience using infrastructure-as-code or declarative configuration approaches for provisioning and managing application infrastructure.
• Experience designing and securing REST APIs using OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect, with OpenAPI documentation.
• Good understanding of common web-application security risks and mitigation techniques, including the OWASP Top 10.
• Experience with application observability, including structured logging, metrics, monitoring, and troubleshooting of distributed applications.
• Strong Git experience and familiarity with modern collaborative development and Git-based delivery workflows.
• Experience with automated testing across application, API, database, and integration layers.
• Experience with AI-assisted software-development tools.
• Ability to work across application, data, and infrastructure layers and diagnose issues involving interactions between these components. Desirable Certifications One or more relevant current professional certifications, for example:
• Oracle Certified Professional Java Developer
• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
• AWS Certified Developer – Associate
• Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert
• Equivalent recognised certification relevant to the proposed technology stack.