(Senior) Backend Software Engineer (Java) - Metadata Platform DB
Mid-to-senior Java backend engineer on Celonis's Metadata Platform DB team, owning Postgres end-to-end — from Terraform/Kubernetes provisioning to Java components (client library, proxy, schema tooling) plus a Rust database proxy. Focus: reliability, performance, security, and maintaining open-source forks in a cloud-native AWS/Azure stack.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Munich, Germany
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- 3+ years
- Category
- Backend
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Solid professional experience building Java applications (3+ years mid-level, 7+ years senior)
- Experience with infrastructure and IaC concepts — comfort working with or alongside Terraform or similar provisioning tooling
- Experience building, packaging, and debugging applications in containerized and Kubernetes environments (Docker/OCI)
- Experience with databases (Postgres preferred, incl. MVCC and concurrency mechanics) and distributed systems
- Experience writing and maintaining unit and integration tests
- Strong communication skills in English and a passion for clean, maintainable code
Nice to have
- Experience with Rust or Go
- Experience maintaining a fork of an open-source project
- Hands-on Terraform experience
- Experience with monitoring and log analysis tools (e.g., Datadog)
- Familiarity with agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Codex)
Full description
Celonis is the trusted platform to industrialize Enterprise AI. At our core is the Celonis Context Model — which combines process data, business knowledge, and intelligence into a living digital twin of the enterprise that AI can actually understand, turning AI's operational blind spots into operational clarity. World's leading companies trust Celonis and its global ecosystem of partners to make their AI agents, people, systems, and processes work together, achieving transformational outcomes. We believe there's a massive opportunity to unlock global productivity and sustainability by giving AI the context to understand how every business process really works. Join our mission to make processes work for people, companies, and the planet.
We are looking for a Backend Software Engineer (Java), mid to senior level, to join the Metadata Platform DB team. This team owns Postgres end-to-end - from infrastructure and provisioning to the software layer that sits on top of it - and is looking for someone to help maintain and grow that ecosystem.
The Team
Metadata Platform DB owns Postgres provisioning and infrastructure as code, along with a set of Java (and one Rust) components built around it, including a core client library, a database proxy, a schema management tool, and a fork of an open-source sharding solution.
The Tech Stack
- Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud-native platform, expanding beyond current AWS and Azure dependencies toward provider-agnostic deployment.
- Core Technologies: Java, Postgres.
- Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, a Go-based operator.
- Systems components: Rust (database proxy).
- Containerization: Kubernetes.
- DevOps: Kustomize, GitHub CI, ArgoCD/Kargo, Datadog for metrics/logs/APM.
The Work You'll Do
- Take ownership of one or more Java components in the Postgres ecosystem, including newly onboarded ones.
- Work alongside the infrastructure-as-code side of the stack (Terraform, operators) to understand how your components are provisioned and operated.
- Improve reliability, performance, and security of the components you own.
- Where applicable, maintain forks of open-source projects - tracking upstream changes and making deliberate calls about merging versus diverging.
- Collaborate with teams handing off components and with downstream consumers.
- Document processes, concepts, and decisions as ownership transitions and components evolve.
The Qualifications You Need
- Solid professional experience building Java applications (3+ years mid-level, 7+ years senior).