Role: Java Microservices Payments Location: Sheffield, UK Work Mode: Hybrid (3 Days from Office) Contract Role: 6 months Banking Domain Start Date: Only Immediate Joiners or candidates with max 2-3 weeks’ notice Role Purpose You will be responsible for building and evolving high-throughput, low-latency payment services using Java microservices on our Kubernetes-based platform (IKP). The role focuses on leveraging Service Mesh capabilities to enable secure, observable, and resilient service-to-service communication across critical payment journeys. Key Responsibilities Design, develop, and maintain Java-based microservices for payment processing and orchestration Build REST/gRPC APIs and event-driven services for payment workflows and integrations Implement resilience patterns such as retries, circuit breakers, and timeouts Utilize Service Mesh capabilities (traffic management, mTLS, observability) Optimize systems for high performance, scalability, and low latency Ensure auditability, traceability, and strong monitoring for payment systems Collaborate with product, architecture, and platform teams Drive engineering excellence through code reviews, testing, and CI/CD Required Skills Strong hands-on experience in Java and microservices architecture Experience with Kubernetes-based platforms (IKP or similar) Good understanding of Service Mesh concepts (mTLS, routing, sidecars) Knowledge of microservices patterns (DDD, API versioning, backward compatibility) Experience with Kafka or similar messaging systems Familiarity with observability tools (logging, tracing, metrics) Preferred Skills Spring Boot or Quarkus Docker and Kubernetes API tools like OpenAPI/Swagger Security: OAuth2, JWT, mTLS CI/CD pipelines and automated testing Performance and contract testing tools Payments Domain Experience Understanding of payment processing flows (validation, routing, reconciliation, exceptions) Familiarity with standards like ISO 20022, SEPA, ACH, Faster Payments Awareness of compliance, audit, and operational risk controls