Backend Software Developer

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.

We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise. Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow. For more information, visit WPP.com.

Why we're hiring:

A backend software developer who designs, builds, and supports reliable systems from the ground up. This role is best suited to someone who pays close attention to details, follows work through to completion, and takes ownership of quality across implementation, testing, release, and ongoing support. The developer will also extend existing systems while maintaining performance, security, maintainability, and test coverage across the stack.

What you'll be doing:

Demonstrate strong Java proficiency to design, prototype, and review core services and integrations.

Partner with product and engineering teams to clarify requirements, identify edge cases and acceptance criteria, and translate business needs into solution architectures, technical specifications, and implementation plans.

Design integration approaches across systems, including RESTful APIs, messaging/event-driven patterns, and data synchronization.

Evaluate and recommend technology choices, frameworks, and third-party components; perform trade-off analyses and document decisions.

Ensure non-functional requirements are met, including security, scalability, observability (logging/metrics/tracing), resilience, and disaster recovery.

Collaborate with DevOps/SRE to support CI/CD pipelines, deployment architecture, and operational readiness.

Contribute actively to architecture and design reviews, provide thoughtful technical guidance, and remain engaged through delivery and post-release support.

Identify technical risks, dependencies, ambiguous requirements, and delivery gaps early; document mitigation plans, track them to resolution, and confirm outcomes with stakeholders.

What you'll need:

Strong proficiency in Java and the JVM ecosystem (e.g., Spring/Spring Boot), including performance tuning and troubleshooting.

Knowledgeable of core web principles: HTTP, AJAX, cookies, performance best practices, and security fundamentals.

Demonstrated experience developing and supporting large enterprise applications with high availability and complex integrations.

Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts (e.g., concurrency, caching, eventual consistency, resiliency patterns).

Experience with relational databases and SQL; ability to model data and optimize queries.

Knowledge of document-based (NoSQL) databases (e.g., MongoDB, Couchbase) including data modeling and query patterns.

Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Write clean, well-documented, and thoroughly tested code; verify edge cases, failure modes, error handling, and operational behavior before considering work complete.

Own features from initial requirements through implementation, testing, release, and post-release validation, resolving defects and unfinished details rather than handing off incomplete work.

Participate in a constructive and inclusive culture of peer code reviews.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with cloud platforms (Azure/AWS/GCP) and cloud-native architectures.

Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker,