Mid-Level Backend Engineer

Orangepeople•Inglewood, CA

About The Position

OP is seeking a mid-level Backend Engineer to join its DevOps organization and support, troubleshoot, and continuously improve backend systems. This role focuses on production operations as well as backend engineering, with close involvement in issues affecting a customer-facing platform before, during, and after live events. The engineer will investigate problems, identify root causes, and coordinate with internal engineering teams and third-party technology partners to resolve issues and improve system reliability. The environment includes Java and Spring Boot services, REST APIs, Kafka messaging, PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB, Redis, Azure, Datadog, and Azure DevOps. Microservices also integrate directly with Ticketmaster authentication and APIs, as well as Microsoft Dynamics, PlayFab, payment providers, and other venue technologies. The role offers hands-on exposure to production engineering, distributed systems, cloud technology, and the operational demands of a major sports and entertainment venue. The successful candidate will use telemetry to investigate incidents, document root causes, recommend monitoring and resilience improvements, and make targeted backend fixes and enhancements with appropriate testing. They will collaborate across DevOps, backend, mobile, and product teams, as well as external vendors. OP describes itself as a technology consulting and solutions company providing advisory and managed services, platforms, and staffing across areas including AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise architecture.

Requirements

At least 5 years of hands-on experience with Java.
Experience with Spring Boot or another Java application framework.
Working knowledge of JavaScript.
Familiarity with REST APIs and JSON.
Basic understanding of databases and SQL.
Exposure to Microsoft Azure.
Familiarity with Azure DevOps or comparable CI/CD tooling.
Experience using Datadog or another observability platform for logs, metrics, or application monitoring.
Understanding of Git and modern source-control workflows.
Basic understanding of distributed applications and microservices.
Strong problem-solving skills and interest in investigating why failures occurred, not only resolving immediate symptoms.
Ability to read unfamiliar code and trace application behavior across services.
Comfort investigating application logs and technical telemetry.
Ability to document technical findings clearly.
Comfort collaborating with engineers, DevOps teams, and external vendors.
Passion, willingness to learn and be mentored, strong technical fundamentals, curiosity, and persistence.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with Ticketmaster APIs and SDKs.
Experience with Kafka or event-driven systems.
Exposure to PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB, or Redis.
Familiarity with Docker and Kubernetes.
Experience with Terraform or Infrastructure as Code.
Exposure to IoT or connected-device environments.
Experience with high-availability or customer-facing production systems.
Experience in sports, entertainment, venue technology, e-commerce, or environments with concentrated periods of demand.
Comfort using modern AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate troubleshooting and development.
Hands-on experience with Claude or Claude Code.
Hands-on experience with OpenAI or ChatGPT.
Experience with AI-assisted code generation, debugging, or test generation.
Experience with AI-assisted log analysis and root cause analysis.
Experience with AI-supported documentation or code review.

Responsibilities

Investigate operational issues affecting ticketing, arrival, loyalty, and purchasing before, during, and after events.
Analyze application logs, traces, metrics, and alerts to determine what happened and where failures originated.
Use Datadog and Azure tooling to troubleshoot service health, application errors, latency, and integration issues, including through dashboards, service-health views, error logs, alerts, and live-event monitoring.
Perform root cause analysis for recurring or impactful ticketing incidents.
Document findings so engineering teams and vendors can reproduce and permanently address issues.
Identify recurring failure patterns and recommend improvements to monitoring, resilience, and operational readiness.
Debug and enhance backend applications written primarily in Java and Spring Boot.
Make targeted code changes and fixes related to defects, integrations, and operational reliability.
Develop, maintain, and troubleshoot REST APIs and backend integrations.
Work with data across PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB, and Redis.
Assist with event-driven workflows using Kafka and Confluent Cloud.
Write unit and integration tests and participate in peer code reviews.
Support deployment and CI/CD activities through Azure DevOps.
Determine whether issues originate within customer services or external dependencies and collaborate toward resolution.
Work with Ticketmaster and other third-party vendors to investigate integration issues.
Gather logs, traces, API responses, and technical evidence for effective issue escalation.
Reproduce defects and help engineering partners distinguish symptoms from root causes.
Validate fixes and enhancements in lower environments before release.
Coordinate with internal DevOps, backend, mobile, and product teams when issues cross system boundaries.
Contribute to OP monthly team meetings, team-building efforts, technical discussions, and peer reviews.
Contribute content and collaborate via the OP-Wiki/Knowledge Base.
Provide status reports to OP Account Management as requested.