Senior Backend Engineer - Java

Real (Nasdaq: REAX) is a publicly traded, fast-growing global real estate brokerage powered by technology and driven by people. Since our founding in 2014, we’ve been reimagining the residential real estate experience. With operations across the U.S., Canada, India, and the District of Columbia, we’re leading the industry with our cutting-edge platform that empowers agents, simplifies the buying and selling journey, and unlocks greater financial opportunities. At Real, we believe in pairing Tech x Humanity to create something truly different. Learn more at https://www.onereal.com/ Schedule: MUST be willing to work Eastern (EST) time zone hours, regardless of location. Job Summary: As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will be reporting to the Vice President of Engineering and would be a key member of Real’s R&D team. You will operate in an AI-first environment leveraging tools like Claude Code to translate product ideas into production-ready systems. You will help lead the overall technical vision for all things back-end, implementing features, squashing bugs, and making improvements across our Java Spring Microservices. You would also drive adoption of AI-assisted development practices within the backend engineering team. If you are self-motivated and a tech expert to join a results-oriented team, we encourage you to join us. This role is not just about writing code; it’s about: - Designing scalable systems - Validating and owning AI-assisted code - Driving technical excellence across the team What You’ll Do: - Collaborate with other engineers through pairing sessions, code reviews, and knowledge sharing in our weekly Friday Dev Chats.

• Mentor and lead junior engineers in software engineering methodology, design, and best practices.
• Work with the product team and feature owners to understand requirements and see them through to execution and deployment.

• You are comfortable writing unit and integration tests and maintaining strong code coverage - You have experience designing event-driven microservices and applying patterns such as Domain-Driven Design (DDD), hexagonal (ports & adapters) architecture, and CQRS.
• You have in-depth knowledge of relational databases, including indices, connection pools, transactions (ACID), and implications of schema designs on performance - You have experience with NoSQL databases, understand their advantages and disadvantages, and know when to prefer one over a relational database.
• You are opinionated in the direction that backend software development is going and will give recommendations and take the initiative for the long-term health of the project.
• You have a keen eye for where to refactor and when, using standard design principles and patterns, and are excited to lead the team on the path to better code - You are welcoming to other engineers, have a collaborative attitude, and are excited to both learn and teach new knowledge - You enjoy working with a remote team that spans many different time zones and locations - You are comfortable in an agile, fast-paced startup environment where you work closely with product to understand how your work will fit into the larger project while acting on limited information Our Tech Stack - Java 17+ - Spring Boot 3.x+ - Postgres - Kafka - DynamoDB - Redis - OpenSearch - AWS - Docker - Kubernetes - Datadog - ArgoCD - TeamCity AI-Assisted Development - Real operates in an AI-first engineering environment - our backend engineers use AI coding assistants and agentic developer tools every day, wired into our internal systems.
• Hands-on experience with AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex (or similar) in real development workflows - Familiarity with agentic / CLI-based AI workflows and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations that connect AI tools to internal systems (e.g., GitHub, Datadog, issue tracking, SonarQube) - Experience applying AI to accelerate code review, test generation, and documentation, not just code completion.
• Ability to critically evaluate generated code; identify incorrect or suboptimal outputs; refactor AI-generated code for production readiness - Strong judgment on when to use AI vs manual implementation; trade-offs between speed and correctness; validating and owning AI-assisted code before it ships to production - We are empowered through our strong test coverage to allow continuous delivery with multiple deploys per day.

• Move Fast with Purpose: We act with urgency, clarity, and focus—without compromising our standards.
• Own Your Outcome: Effort matters, but results matter more.

• Be Bold; Challenge Often: We challenge assumptions, rethink “the usual,” and push for smarter, simpler solutions.
• Win Together: We set high standards, collaborate deeply, and celebrate shared success. Additional Details: - Location

Requirements

• Physical

Requirements

• Demonstrate Java mastery with real‑world, high‑throughput APIs: Build or open‑source a microservice that handles >10,000 requests/second (e.g., property search endpoint) and include metrics, load‑test results, and code walkthrough in your GitHub README. Mention any use of Spring Boot, reactive programming (WebFlux), and containerization (Docker/Kubernetes) – all core to Real’s scalable platform.
• Show how you’ve automated data pipelines with Excel as a source/consumer: Create a short case study (1–2 pages) describing a project where you ingested large Excel workbooks, transformed them (Apache POI, Apache Commons CSV), and persisted the data to a relational or NoSQL store used by a backend service. Highlight error handling, validation, and performance tuning – Real values seamless Excel integration for agents’ workflow.
• Align your experience with Real’s “Tech × Humanity” culture: Prepare concrete examples of cross‑functional collaboration (e.g., partnering with product, UX, or real‑estate agents) that resulted in a feature improving user experience or closing rates. Emphasize remote communication tools you mastered (Slack, Asana, Zoom) and how you kept EST‑aligned syncs productive despite time‑zone differences.
• Ace the system‑design interview with a real‑estate focus: Practice designing a “Property Listing Service” that supports filtering, pagination, and real‑time availability updates. Be ready to discuss data modeling (SQL vs. graph), caching strategies (Redis, CDN), eventual consistency, and security (OWASP, role‑based access). Reference any similar architecture you’ve built and be prepared to sketch it on a virtual whiteboard.
• Leverage market data for salary & equity negotiation: Research recent Glassdoor/Levels.fyi reports for senior Java backend engineers in EST‑remote roles (typically $150‑$180 K base + 0.05‑0.15 % equity). Prepare a one‑pager summarizing your comparable achievements (e.g., cost‑savings, traffic growth) and articulate the added value you’ll bring to Real’s growth trajectory, then use it as a basis for a data‑driven compensation discussion.