Scala Backend Developer (Hybrid, Barcelona)

About the role

We are seeking a Backend Developer to join our HCM Localisation engineering team. The role focuses on building and maintaining scalable, cloud‑based services that power complex product workflows and integrations. This is a hybrid position requiring three days a week in our Barcelona office.

Key responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services using Scala 2.13, Play Framework and a Pekko‑based environment.
• Write clean, testable, and maintainable code applying functional programming principles, immutability and asynchronous programming with Futures.
• Create efficient data access patterns for MySQL, optimise queries, tune indexes and profile database performance.
• Develop, deploy and support services on AWS, collaborating closely with DevOps and platform teams.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, Git‑based pull‑request workflows, code reviews and engineering best practices.
• Work with frontend engineers, QA, product owners and other backend developers to deliver high‑quality product increments.
• Ensure production stability by investigating issues, improving observability and reducing technical debt.

Required profile

• Professional backend development experience, preferably in enterprise, SaaS or cloud‑based products.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Scala, including collections, Futures, immutability, pattern matching and functional design.
• Commercial experience with Play Framework or comparable JVM backend frameworks; Pekko or Akka experience is highly relevant.
• Deep understanding of relational databases, especially MySQL, with practical knowledge of SQL optimisation and indexing.
• Experience with Redis or similar caching technologies.
• Solid grasp of OOP, functional programming, concurrency, the Scala type system and advanced architectural patterns.
• Hands‑on experience with AWS services and cloud‑native delivery practices.
• Proficiency with CI/CD, Git, branching strategies and automated testing.
• Ability to work effectively in distributed Agile teams and take ownership of complex technical problems.

Required skills

• Scala
• Play Framework
• Pekko (or Akka)
• MySQL
• Redis
• AWS
• Git
• CI/CD pipelines
• Squeryl or Doobie (nice to have)
• Grafana or Kibana (nice to have)