Location: Fully remote (no multi-site travel required) Contract Type: Permanent/ or initial 12-Month Fixed Term Contract (FTC) Employer: Amber Labs – Digital Consultancy Clearance: Active SC Clearance Required Start Date: Immediate About Amber Labs Amber Labs is a forward-thinking digital consultancy delivering innovative cloud, data, and DevOps solutions across the UK public sector. We specialise in helping organisations achieve digital transformation at pace while maintaining the highest security and governance standards. We are seeking a Java Developer to join a delivery team building a new Java-based microservice that will integrate with an established PHP application landscape. Role Overview This is a backend engineering role focused on developing modern, scalable microservices using Java and Spring Boot, while collaborating with teams responsible for the existing PHP platform. The successful candidate does not need to be a PHP developer but should be comfortable understanding integration points and working across a mixed-technology environment. This role is well-suited to a developer who enjoys building clean, maintainable services and is keen to broaden their technical experience. Key Responsibilities * Design, develop, and maintain Java-based microservices using Spring Boot * Build robust REST APIs that integrate with existing PHP services * Support the implementation of messaging and asynchronous processing where appropriate * Collaborate with developers across Java and PHP codebases to ensure seamless integration * Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering best practices * Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code * Support troubleshooting, defect resolution, and continuous improvement activities Essential Skills & Experience Java (Primary Requirement) * Strong hands-on experience developing enterprise applications using modern Java * Solid understanding of: Object-oriented programming (OOP) Core Java concepts Exception handling Collections and concurrency fundamentals Clean coding principles * Experience developing maintainable, production-quality backend applications. Spring Boot (Essential) * Proven experience building applications with Spring Boot * Practical knowledge of: RESTful API development Dependency Injection (IoC) Spring MVC Configuration management Validation and exception handling * Understanding of: Application lifecycle Testing within the Spring ecosystem Build tools such as Maven or Gradle Microservices Development * Experience designing or contributing to microservices-based applications * Understanding of: Service-to-service communication API integration Stateless application design Resilience and fault tolerance principles Ability to build services that integrate effectively within wider application ecosystems Message Queues (Desirable) Practical experience or a good understanding of asynchronous messaging technologies, such as: * RabbitMQ * Apache Kafka * Apache ActiveMQ Candidates should understand concepts including: * Publish/subscribe messaging * Event-driven communication * Asynchronous processing * Message reliability and delivery patterns Apply Now and help shape the future of UK digital services with Amber Labs
