The role
Job description
Software Engineer – Java Application Support
Application Support & Managed Services | Java Technology Stack
Role Title
Software Engineer – Application Support (Java / Spring Boot)
Grade / Band
Software Engineer
Experience
1–4 years in application support or Java development
Location
[Location] – hybrid; rotational shift, weekend and on-call coverage required
Reports To
Lead – Java Application Support (day-to-day guidance from a Senior Software Engineer)
Role Summary
We are looking for a Software Engineer to join the support team for our Java applications. You will be the first line of technical response — monitoring application health, picking up incidents and service requests, running documented diagnostics, fixing straightforward defects, and escalating with clear evidence when an issue needs deeper analysis. This is a strong learning role: you will build real production troubleshooting skill on Java and Spring Boot systems, working alongside senior engineers who will guide and review your work.
Key Responsibilities
Incident & Service Request Handling
Act as first-line technical response for assigned Java applications — acknowledge, triage and resolve incidents and service requests within agreed SLAs.
Execute documented runbook and SOP procedures accurately for known issues and standard requests.
Perform initial diagnostics — check application logs, service and JVM status, job status, connectivity, disk and memory — before escalating.
Escalate unresolved or high-impact issues to the Senior Software Engineer or Lead with a clear summary of symptoms, checks performed and findings.
Keep tickets accurately updated at every stage and communicate status to users in plain, professional language.
Handle user access requests, data extraction requests and standard configuration requests per approved processes.
Monitoring & Proactive Operations
Monitor dashboards, alerts, batch schedules, queues and integration flows throughout the shift.
Respond to alerts proactively and take documented corrective action before users are impacted.
Run daily, weekly and month-end health checks and publish results to the team.
Track batch job failures, reruns and interface reconciliation, escalating exceptions promptly.
Perform routine housekeeping — log rotation and clean-up, archival, space checks and scheduled restarts.
Debugging & Defect Support
Read and interpret Java stack traces and application logs to identify the failing component.
Write SQL queries to investigate data-related issues and validate application behaviour.
Reproduce reported defects in test environments and document the reproduction steps clearly.
Fix simple, well-scoped defects in Java/Spring Boot code under supervision, with unit tests and peer review.
Assist senior engineers during deeper investigations by capturing thread dumps, heap dumps and diagnostic evidence.
Release & Change Support
Support deployments and release windows — execute assigned checklist steps and post-implementation validation.
Perform smoke testing and health verification after releases and report issues promptly.
Follow the change process for every production action, without exception.
Documentation & Learning
Create and update knowledge base articles for issues you resolve so they become repeatable.
Keep runbooks and SOPs current, flagging steps that are outdated or unclear.
Complete structured shift handovers so no issue is lost between shifts.
Build depth in Java, Spring Boot and the business domain through structured learning, pairing and mentoring.
Technical Skills
Java Fundamentals
Core Java (8/11/17) — OOP, collections, exception handling and the ability to read and understand existing code.
Spring Boot basics — application structure, configuration files, REST controllers, dependency injection.
Ability to read and interpret Java stack traces and application logs.
Basic understanding of Hibernate/JPA and how application code reaches the database.
Awareness of JVM concepts — heap, garbage collection, threads — and the tools used to inspect them.
JUnit basics for validating fixes.
Platform, Data & Tooling
SQL — queries with joins, filters and aggregation for data investigation.
Databases
Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL or SQL Server.
Linux/Unix command line — navigating directories, grep/tail on logs, checking processes, disk and services.
Application servers
awareness of Tomcat, JBoss or WebLogic and how to start, stop and check them.
Version control with Git; awareness of CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps).
ITSM tooling
ServiceNow, Jira Service Management or Remedy.
Exposure to monitoring and log tools (ELK, Splunk, Grafana, Dynatrace, AppDynamics) is an advantage.
IDE proficiency — IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse — including the debugger.
Required Skills & Experience
1–4 years of experience in application support, production support or Java development.
Sound understanding of core Java and object-oriented fundamentals.
Ability to read a stack trace and trace it to the responsible component.
Working SQL knowledge — able to write SELECT queries with joins and aggregation.
Basic Linux/Unix command-line comfort for log and process investigation.
Familiarity with ITSM tooling and basic ITIL concepts of incident, request and change.
Ability to follow documented procedures precisely, and to recognise when a situation falls outside them.
Clear written and verbal communication — able to describe a technical issue understandably.
Willingness to work rotational shifts, including nights, weekends and public holidays per the roster.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related discipline.
Good to Have
Basic scripting ability in Shell or Python.
Exposure to Spring Boot Actuator, application metrics or monitoring tools.
Awareness of messaging systems such as Kafka or RabbitMQ.
Exposur