Lead Java Developer - Global Crypto Exchange - Hon

Our client, a global crypto exchange, are actively seeking a Senior Java Lead to join their team in Asia. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role (80% hands on) where you will design and implement core services, drive architecture and quality, and lead a small engineering team (1–2 years of people management experience required). You’ll collaborate closely with product, SRE, QA, and security to deliver production-grade systems that meet strict performance, reliability and regulatory requirements. **The role:** - Lead design and implementation of critical Java services (microservices, middleware, messaging, real‑time processing) with a focus on scalability, low latency and observability. - Own technical architecture decisions, system design reviews, and ensure alignment with platform vision and non‑functional requirements (performance, reliability, security). - Hands-on development: Write, review and maintain high-quality Java code; implement complex features and performance optimizations. - Mentor, coach and provide technical leadership to engineers; run code reviews, set engineering standards and enforce best practices. - People management: Manage/mentor a small team (hire, set goals, conduct performance reviews, provide career development). Coordinate with engineering management for scaling the team. - Drive delivery: Estimate, plan and execute features and platform upgrades; remove blockers and ensure timely releases with high quality. - Ensure robust testing (unit, integration, performance), fault tolerance, and production readiness; participate in on-call rotations and incident postmortems. - Engage with stakeholders (product, risk, compliance) to interpret requirements, provide technical guidance, and ensure regulatory/compliance needs are met. **What you offer:** - 10+ years software development experience with Java, with a proven track record building and shipping production systems. - 1–2+ years of people management or formal team lead experience (hiring, performance management, mentoring). - Strong knowledge of backend architecture patterns: microservices, REST/gRPC APIs, event-driven systems, concurrency, and asynchronous processing. - Deep understanding of performance tuning, JVM internals, garbage collection tuning, and memory management. - Proficiency with Spring ecosystem (Spring Boot, Spring Cloud), or similar Java frameworks. - Hands-on experience with SQL and NoSQL databases (Postgres, MySQL, Redis, Cassandra, etc.), and schema/design best practices. - Experience building CI/CD pipelines and working with DevOps/tooling (Jenkins/GitLab CI, Docker, Kubernetes). - Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and cloud-native application patterns. - Knowledge of security practices, observability (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK), and incident response processes. - Excellent communication skills; ability to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Experience in crypto or compliance technology would be nice to have (i.e.. regulatory/compliance frameworks relevant to financial services (e.g., SFC/HK, PCI‑DSS, SOC) **The Sell** - Work on high-impact trading systems - Global visibility and opportunities for career advancement later down the line - Competitive salary and brand name that will open doors for your career.