BACKGROUND
Blockchain technology is poised to become the next big computing paradigm, disrupting existing processes and unlocking new business models through secure multi-party computation. In a rapidly evolving digital economy, blockchain technology will form the backbone of the next era of distributed enterprise and consumer applications with its business value surging to exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030 per Gartner. Businesses are looking to understand and apply the distributed ledger technology that started with Bitcoin to streamline and innovate their business problems.
ABOUT THE TEAM & ROLE
This position is located at the Rakuten Blockchain Lab in Belfast city centre. We have grown an engineering team of 10 during the first year of operation and have multiple active blockchain projects due for production launch in the next 3-6 months. The existing team collectively has many years of experience in building secure, high availability enterprise platforms for financial services, health and consumer electronics sectors. We will be growing the team to 20 over the next 12 months and as a result are now actively seeking a passionate and motivated Staff Software Engineer. The projects are both interesting and challenging, providing an environment that should satisfy any engineer’s career aspirations and growth opportunities. This is an exciting opportunity to be at the core of delivering blockchain based solutions and integration services that will enable the transformation of Rakuten businesses. You will work in small agile teams creating solutions for individual Rakuten companies as well as common platforms and services to be used across the organisation
We need software engineers who are interested in the "full stack”. That is, you need to be comfortable working with all the technologies required to bring an idea to production. We don’t expect you to be an expert in everything and believe that everyone brings their own specializations and competencies to the team, but we want you to be enthusiastic about “getting your hands dirty” in all of it. You will have the opportunity to work on emerging blockchain frameworks and learn from the experienced blockchain engineers in the team.
TECHNICAL STACK
In the Rakuten Blockchain Lab, we take ownership of the full end-to-end solution from inception through to production and beyond. Our services are built in Node.js with various relational databases and follow a micro-services architecture. We work with multiple public and private blockchain protocols & frameworks depending on the requirements. We package our services with Docker and use Google Kubernetes for automating deployment, scaling and management of these containers in both public and private cloud environments. We value short feedback loops and have implemented a CI/CD pipeline as well as automated unit, integration and acceptance tests.
ABOUT YOU
We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer who has both breadth and depth of knowledge, taking responsibility for designing and leading complex solutions, including scoping, estimation, design, build and test. You should have a track record delivering end to end platforms and services in an enterprise environment. You need to have an interest in new and emerging technology and be eager to take on new challenges outside of your comfort zone. You will understand that delivering great software requires a high degree of collaboration both internally and with other stakeholders. You will be need to be comfortable with an approach to delivery that encourages experimentation as well as taking ownership. You will be motivated to improve the overall process of software delivery from coding best practices and continuous integration/delivery to performance engineering and analytics
JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
- Help build a world class team and cultivate innovation.
- Lead design and development of major software components, systems, and features.
- Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain and improve software.
- Act as a blockchain evangelist across the organisation
- Contribute to pre-sales activities for Blockchain business opportunities.
- Conceptualise and develop relevant use cases, proof-of-concepts (POC) and proofs-of-value (POV)
- Manage individual projects priorities, deadlines and deliverables with your technical expertise.
- Lead system troubleshooting and problem solving across platform and application domains
- Mentor and train other team members on design techniques, and coding standards
- Acting as the technical subject matter expert: Mentoring fellow engineers, demonstrating technical expertise, and leading a small team solving challenging programming and design problems
- Investigate and propose architecture and process improvements
- Evaluate new technology options and vendor products.
- Assist project and product leaders in making risk-managed planning and release decisions
EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR THE ROLE
Essential
- 10+ years of solid commercial development experience, working with Java or Node.js on Linux (experience with other object orientated or functional languages such as .NET, Python or Ruby will also be considered)
- Strong leadership experience: Leading meetings, presenting, technical go to person, and cross-functional leader
- Excellent communication skills: Demonstrated ability to explain complex technical issues to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Proven expertise in the Software design/architecture process
- Experience with a DevOps approach to software delivery where you are involved not just in writing code, but also in making sure it gets deployed and runs correctly in test and production environments.
- Solid understanding of source code management, build automation and continuous integration tools such as Maven, npm, Jenkins and Git/Bitbucket is essential
- Experience in delivering cloud based systems (i.e. deploying and running in AWS, Azure, OpenStack, Google Compute Environment, etc.)
- Experience of working in an agile development environment
- Ability to diagnose, analyze and resolve complex software application issues.
- A basic understanding of blockchain fundamentals
Preferred
- Experience of delivering REST APIs and micro-service based architectures
- Practical experience of creating deployment and release pipelines.
- Previous experience of working with blockchain frameworks such as Hyperledger Fabric or Multichain
- Active and recent contributions to open source projects.
- Experience of application containers such as Docker and container orchestration technologies such as Docker Swarm or Google Kubernetes
- Knowledge and practical experience of OWASP secure coding standards
- Prior experience of working with high availability, secure enterprise platforms in the financial services sector
ABOUT RAKUTEN
Rakuten, Inc. (TSE: 4755) is a global leader in internet services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Founded in Tokyo in 1997 as an online marketplace, Rakuten has expanded to offer services in e-commerce, fintech, digital content and communications to more than 1 billion members around the world. Since 2012, Rakuten has ranked in the top 30 of Forbes Magazine’s annual “World’s Most Innovative Companies” list. The Rakuten Group has over 14,000 employees, and operations in 29 countries and regions.
Our mission is to empower people and society through innovation and entrepreneurship. Our goal is to be Global Innovation Company. We believe in innovation as a driver of global change – enriching the lives of people around the globe and bringing joy to the everyday. We embrace new and disruptive ideas, the commitment to act on them and the venture spirit that believes in our potential to change the world. That’s why we were selected by Forbes magazine to be in the Top 20 of World’s Most Innovative Companies in four consecutive years!
This is where you come in: Rakuten is built on a philosophy of empowerment where everyone has the chance to make an impact. We believe in taking on new challenges and driving innovation. Together, we get ahead through success and learn from failure. In the end, truly empowered people produce amazing results. No matter your area of interest, we need your spirit, energy and drive to push us further and help unlock our potential.
If you are interested in becoming part of an organization that aims to empower society and become the World’s best, join the company where YOU shape the future. Come and work with us!
