Backend Engineer - Event-Driven Architecture (Kotlin/Kafka)

Title : Backend Engineer – Event-Driven Architecture (Kotlin/Kafka)
Location : Remote (U.S.-based)
Job Type : W2 Contract (5 Months)
Compensation : $75.19 - $90.22/hr W2 (no C2C)
Industry: Retail
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About the Role
We are partnering with a leading Fortune 500 retail corporation to hire a Development Engineer for their growing technology team. Our client is one of the largest general merchandise retailers in the United States, known for its innovative approach to digital commerce, supply chain modernization, and guest experience. Their engineering teams build and support large-scale, high-traffic systems that power millions of transactions and interactions daily.

This is an exciting opportunity for a backend engineer who thrives in a fast-paced, distributed systems environment and enjoys solving complex technical challenges at enterprise scale.

Job Description
As a Backend Engineer, you will design, develop, and maintain scalable backend services that support event-driven and distributed applications. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to build reliable, high-performing systems using modern JVM-based technologies. This role requires a strong foundation in backend development, event streaming, and API design, along with a passion for engineering best practices.

Key responsibilities include:

• Designing and developing backend applications in a JVM-based environment using Kotlin
• Building event-driven and distributed systems, including producers, consumers, topics, queues, and message contracts.
• Implementing scalable services using Apache Kafka or comparable messaging/streaming platforms.
• Developing REST APIs and asynchronous service interfaces to support distributed applications.
• Applying robust backend testing practices, including unit, integration, and contract testing, as well as validating event-driven workflows.
• Collaborating with engineering teams to ensure reliability, scalability, and performance across production systems.

Qualifications
Required Qualifications:

• Strong experience designing and developing backend applications using Kotlin in a JVM-based environment.
• Hands-on experience building event-driven and distributed systems, including a solid understanding of event producers and consumers, topics and queues, event schemas and message contracts, retry and error-handling strategies, idempotent processing, event ordering, and eventual consistency.
• Experience designing and implementing scalable services using Apache Kafka or a comparable messaging/streaming platform.
• Experience designing and developing REST APIs and asynchronous service interfaces for distributed applications.
• Strong understanding of backend testing practices, including unit testing, integration testing, contract testing, and validation of event-driven workflows and messaging interactions.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience optimizing high-volume, distributed backend services for performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Experience troubleshooting and monitoring event-driven systems in production environments.

Benefits
Dahl Consulting is proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees that will allow you to choose the best coverage to meet your family’s needs. For details, please review the DAHL Benefits Summary:  How to Apply
Take the first step on your new career path!  To submit yourself for consideration for this role, simply click the apply button and complete our mobile-friendly online application. Once we’ve reviewed your application details, a recruiter will reach out to you with next steps!
Equal Opportunity Statement
As an equal opportunity employer, Dahl Consulting welcomes candidates of all backgrounds and experiences to apply. If this position sounds like the right opportunity for you, we encourage you to take the next step and connect with us. We look forward to meeting you!