Senior Software Engineer (Backend)
CargoX
Role:CargoX is a UAE-based autonomous logistics company deploying driverless delivery vehicles across last-mile, middle-mile, and long-haul routes. At the heart of our operations is CargoX's fleet orchestration platform. The digital glue and critical infrastructure layer within our autonomous mobility ecosystem coordinating real-world delivery flows across autonomous vans, bots, and drones. It connects delivery partners, commercial operators, and vehicle providers, managing the full operational journey from order creation and dispatch through live vehicle state, customer handoff, incident recovery, and data-driven reporting. With strong foundations in place and live operations underway, our next chapter is about hardening the platform, expanding to new partners and vehicle types, and scaling our technology to power the future of autonomous logistics.
Role Overview
We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Backend) who prioritizes system reliability and product impact. You will be a key contributor to CargoX's fleet orchestration platform, developing a scalable Backend API service that serves as the primary interface for our commercial ecosystem. We value engineers who operate with a high degree of autonomy, technical pragmatism, and a commitment to operational excellence. We are specifically looking for candidates who demonstrate ownership, pragmatism, and feel comfortable navigating ambiguity.
Who You Are
Fundamentally Sound: While we value strong computer science and distributed system fundamentals, we are moving at a pace where deep, practical experience with our core stack (Java/Kotlin and Spring Boot) is essential to hit the ground running and drive immediate impact.
A True Problem Solver: You know that the hardest architectural questions cannot simply be thrown into an LLM. You thrive on getting around a whiteboard to untangle complex problems, figure things out, and navigate the pace and ambiguity of a high-growth environment.
Distributed Systems Expert: Experienced in building distributed systems, including the less glamorous but critical challenges of reliable data pipelines, maintaining consistency, and handling concurrency at scale.
Engineering Standard-Bearer: You raise the engineering bar through thoughtful design discussions, rigorous and constructive code reviews, mentoring, and learning from production incidents.
Adaptable & Pragmatic: You remain calm when things move quickly and priorities shift. You can decide what matters most, make progress without being blocked, and keep shipping while the product takes shape.
Product-Minded: An engineer who not only writes clean and reliable code but has strong product instincts and enjoys jumping on calls and threads with customers, operators, and cross-functional peers.
AI-Leveraged, but Accountable: Proficient with AI-assisted coding tools to move faster and rapidly prototype, while taking absolute ownership of the code committed. You care deeply about quality and want to spend more time on the hard problems.
In-Person Collaborator: Someone who enjoys working in-person; we are based in Abu Dhabi with typically 4 days a week in the office (WFO).
Key Responsibilities
Core Systems & Architecture: Design, implement, and optimize scalable Kotlin and Spring Boot backend systems that coordinate long-running, concurrent workflows while remaining correct through retries, duplicate events, partial failures, and unreliable external systems.
Complex Integrations & Data Strategy: Build integrations with vehicle manufacturers, fleet platforms, and delivery partners, turning inconsistent external APIs into dependable product capabilities via a Unified Abstraction Layer. Manage complex data layers across relational, geospatial, and time-series workloads.
Real-Time Systems & Optimization: Drive the technical roadmap for real-time data engineering, resolving bottlenecks in high-frequency data ingestion (MQTT/WebSockets) to ensure sub-second latency.
Security, Scalability & Observability: Enforce standards for platform security and observability, implementing Multi-tenant Architecture (RLS) and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).
Cross-Functional Impact: Work closely with customers, operators, Product, and DevSecOps to understand what happens in the real world, turning those insights into pragmatic product and engineering decisions that drive measurable business outcomes.
Shape the Future: Mentor engineers, introduce process improvements, and help shape our architecture, engineering standards, and ways of working as the team and platform grow.
Qualifications
Experience & Education: Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science (or a related field) and 5+ years of professional experience delivering well-tested, complex systems in a SaaS startup environment. Deep, practical experience working with Java/Kotlin and Spring Boot.
Architecture & Data Mastery: Deep proficiency in distributed systems, clean/hexagonal boundaries within a modular monolith, and scalable API design. Expertise in SQL (PostgreSQL), geospatial data (GIS/PostGIS), time-series data (TimescaleDB), and caching/state management (Redis).
Real-Time & Integrations: Experience architecting low-latency communication (WebSockets, MQTT) and building abstraction layers for third-party vendor APIs.
Mindset & Execution: Proven ability to navigate ambiguity, balance architectural purity with commercial objectives (managing technical debt, shipping MVPs), and take full ownership of the code lifecycle and incident management (root-cause analysis and prevention).
AI Proficiency & Quality: Fluent with AI-assisted coding tools in day-to-day development, paired with a consistent focus on software quality and security best practices—including hands-on experience with automated testing (unit and integration test suites), SAST, DAST, and platform observability tooling.
Communication: Fluency in Business English is a must.
Complementary Expertise
Beyond the core backend skills above, we strongly value candidates who bring one or more of the following:
Frontend Proficiency: Practical experience building interfaces with React or Next.js and TypeScript.
Infrastructure & DevOps: Mastery of cloud environments, specifically Kubernetes (EKS), along with CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code.
Industry Experience: Direct background in logistics, robotics, or fleet management systems.