Senior Development Lead - Full Stack Microservices

CodeNinja is a full-stack AI and engineering delivery company helping Saudi enterprises, software acquirers, and government entities modernize systems and operationalize intelligence across mission-critical workflows. Operating out of Riyadh with delivery capability across Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region, CodeNinja builds AI-native infrastructure, embedded engineering capability, and owned application platforms — trusted by 240+ organizations across sectors including government digitization, energy, financial services, logistics, and healthcare.

Through embedded teams, AI pods, and global capability centers, CodeNinja combines global delivery standards with in-market engineering talent.

Engagements are structured so that the systems, code, and capability built stay with the client organization — aligned with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 ambitions around digital sovereignty and local talent development.

We're looking for a hands-on Senior Development Lead with strong experience in Low-Level Design (LLD), Java Spring Boot, Microservices, API development and security, and React JS.

This is a player-coach role — someone who leads the development team while staying deeply involved in architecture discussions, LLD, coding, code reviews, troubleshooting, and technical delivery.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical expertise with team leadership, driving the team toward scalable, secure, high-quality applications.

• Lead technical design and development of complex applications and digital platforms.
• Translate high-level architecture and business requirements into detailed Low-Level Design (LLD) — component design, service boundaries, data models, API contracts, integration patterns, sequence flows, and error handling.
• Review and challenge technical designs for scalability, maintainability, security, and performance.
• Drive adoption of engineering best practices, design patterns, coding standards, and reusable components.
• Provide technical guidance to developers and resolve complex technical issues and blockers.

• Design and develop scalable Java/Spring Boot microservices; lead development of RESTful APIs and backend services.
• Define microservice architecture, service-to-service communication, exception handling, logging, monitoring, and resilience patterns.
• Apply best practices across Spring Boot, Spring Security, JPA/Hibernate, database integration, distributed transactions, caching, and event-driven architecture.
• Perform hands-on coding for critical features and technically complex components.
• Troubleshoot production and non-production issues and drive root-cause analysis.

• Design secure, scalable, production-grade APIs; define request/response contracts, validation rules, error codes, and versioning.
• Apply strong understanding of OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, Authentication & Authorization, API Gateway, and Role-Based Access Control.
• Ensure APIs comply with enterprise security and integration standards, working closely with security, architecture, integration, and platform teams.

• Provide technical leadership for React JS front-end development, including scalable and reusable UI components and front-end architecture.
• Integrate React applications with backend REST APIs, handling authentication, authorization, API errors, and session management.
• Review front-end code and guide developers on performance, usability, and coding standards.
• Contribute hands-on to React development for critical features and technical challenges.

• Stay actively involved in development rather than functioning only as a people/team manager.
• Personally contribute to coding for critical, complex, or high-priority features.
• Conduct detailed code reviews and enforce quality standards; perform technical troubleshooting, debugging, and performance analysis.

• Lead and mentor a team of developers across backend and frontend technologies.
• Break down requirements into technical tasks; support accurate development estimates and assign work by complexity and capability.
• Track progress, identify risks, and proactively remove technical blockers.
• Run technical discussions, design reviews, code reviews, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
• Ensure the team follows agreed development, branching, testing, documentation, and release practices.

• Ensure deliverables meet agreed quality, security, performance, and scalability standards; support SIT/UAT defect resolution.
• Ensure applications are production-ready with appropriate logging, monitoring, alerting, and error handling.
• Support production deployments, hotfixes, and emergency releases, following change/release processes; provide L3 technical support for production incidents.
• Investigate application, API, microservices, database, integration, and performance-related production issues; perform root-cause analysis and implement permanent fixes.
• Work with L2, Operations, DevOps, Infrastructure, Security, and Business teams to resolve production issues within agreed SLAs.
• Support DR readiness, technical validation, and failover/failback testing; participate in DR drills to ensure services, APIs, dependencies, and recovery procedures are validated, keeping production and DR environments aligned.

• Work closely with Solution Architects, Enterprise Architects, Business Analysts, Product Owners, QA, DevOps, Security, and Integration teams.
• Participate in architecture and technical governance forums.
• Clearly communicate technical risks, dependencies, decisions, and recommendations to stakeholders.

• 8–12+ years of software development experience, with significant depth in Java/Spring Boot and microservices.
• At least 3+ years in a Technical Lead / Development Lead role, with proven experience leading teams while staying hands-on.
• Strong experience delivering enterprise-scale digital applications and API-driven platforms in Agile/Scrum environments.
• Backend: Java 8/11/17+, Spring Boot, Spring Framework, Spring Security, RESTful APIs, Microservices architecture, JPA/Hibernate, SQL/relational databases, multithreading/concurrency, design patterns, distributed systems.
• API & Security: REST API design, API Gateway, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, Authentication & Authorization, API security, secure coding practices, API versioning and lifecycle management.
• Front End: React JS, JavaScript/TypeScript, HTML5/CSS3, React components and state management, REST API integration, front-end security and performance.
• DevOps / Engineering: Git, CI/CD (Jenkins/Azure DevOps or equivalent), Docker/Kubernetes, Maven/Gradle, SonarQube, application monitoring and logging.
• Strong Low-Level Design capability, excellent code review discipline, and the ability to independently translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; ability to mentor and technically guide developers.

• Work on scalable, enterprise-grade AI-native and API-driven systems for clients across Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region.
• Player-coach role with real architectural ownership — not just team management.
• Collaborative, growth-focused engineering culture with exposure to modern tooling and architecture.
• Be part of engagements aligned with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 digital transformation agenda.

This job description outlines the primary responsibilities and qualifications for the role at the time of posting.

It is not exhaustive and may evolve in line with business needs and project requirements.

CodeNinja reserves the right to modify role scope as the engagement progresses.

All candidates will be subject to standard background verification.

CodeNinja is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all qualified individuals regardless of background.

Not purely a people manager or project coordinator — a hands-on technical leader who can understand the requirement, design the solution, create the LLD, define APIs and security controls, code critical components, review the team's code, resolve technical issues, mentor developers, and drive the team to production.

• 1. Low-Level Design / Technical Design — Expert
• 2. Java + Spring Boot — Expert
• 3. Microservices — Expert
• 4. API Design & Security — Strong
• 5. Hands-on Coding — Strong
• 6. React JS — Strong working knowledge
• 7. Development Team Leadership — Strong
• 8. DevOps / CI-CD — Good understanding