Senior Powerbuilder developer/Technical lead

Are you an experienced PowerBuilder Developer looking for a role that combines hands-on development, technical leadership and application modernisation?

For one of our clients in Brussels, we are looking for a Senior PowerBuilder Developer / Technical Lead to play a key role in maintaining and modernising a mission-critical business application.

This is an opportunity to take ownership of a complex legacy environment while helping shape its transition towards a modern Java/Angular architecture.

The Role

Our client is launching a major IT modernisation initiative and building a new development team to support this transformation.

The existing business-critical application is based on a PowerBuilder Client/Server architecture. While ensuring its stability and continuity, the organisation is preparing a progressive migration towards a Java/Angular technology stack.

As Senior PowerBuilder Developer, you will act as a technical reference within the new team, combining hands-on expertise, technical analysis, knowledge transfer and collaboration with developers working on the future platform.

The team will progressively expand with Java and Angular developers, giving you the opportunity to play a central role in the technical transition.

Your Responsibilities

PowerBuilder Development & Maintenance

• Provide advanced technical support and resolve complex issues within the existing PowerBuilder application.

• Ensure application stability, reliability and operational continuity.

• Share production maintenance responsibilities with the existing lead developer.

• Maintain clear technical documentation and follow established support procedures.

Legacy Analysis & Modernisation

• Analyse and reverse-engineer existing PowerBuilder applications, including PBLs, DataWindows, DataStores, PowerScript and PFC.

• Identify and document business rules embedded in legacy code.

• Distinguish essential functionality from obsolete features and historical technical workarounds.

• Help separate business logic from user interfaces and database-specific implementations.

• Translate legacy application behaviour into clear functional and technical specifications.

Architecture & Migration

• Collaborate with business analysts, domain experts and Java/Angular developers.

• Contribute to the design of the future application architecture.

• Help define REST API contracts and integration requirements.

• Support the development and validation of non-regression testing strategies.

• Use static code analysis and AI-assisted tools to improve documentation, traceability and migration efficiency.

Technical Leadership

• Act as a technical reference for PowerBuilder within the development team.

• Structure and share technical knowledge to reduce dependency on individual developers.

• Participate in technical workshops and architectural discussions.

• Mentor developers and support knowledge transfer between legacy and modern technologies.

Your Profile

Technical Requirements

• At least 5 years of hands-on PowerBuilder development experience.

• Strong expertise in PowerScript, DataWindows, DataStores and PowerBuilder Foundation Classes (PFC).

• Good understanding of PowerBuilder events, functions, transaction management and database interactions.

• Experience with relational databases, complex SQL queries, stored procedures and query optimisation.

• Ability to analyse and understand complex legacy application architectures.

• Familiarity with modern software architectures, REST APIs and web application development.

• Experience with Java/Spring Boot and/or Angular is a strong advantage. Alternatively, you demonstrate a genuine interest and ability to learn these technologies.

• Experience with application modernisation or legacy migration projects is an asset.

Personal Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

• Ability to understand complex business processes and translate them into technical specifications.

• A structured approach to documentation and knowledge sharing.

• Comfortable collaborating with developers, business analysts and management.

• Willingness to take ownership and assume technical leadership responsibilities.

• Interest in both legacy systems and modern software development.

Languages

• Fluency in French or Dutch is required.

• Professional fluency in English is mandatory.

What's on Offer?

• A key technical role in a large-scale application modernisation programme.

• The opportunity to combine deep PowerBuilder expertise with modern Java/Angular technologies.

• A central role in building and mentoring a new development team.

• The chance to influence architectural decisions and shape the future technical environment.

• A stable, long-term project involving business-critical applications.

• Collaboration with experienced technical and functional professionals.

Practical Information

• Location: Brussels, Belgium.

• Hybrid working: 3 days per week on-site.

• Contract: Permanent employment, fixed-term contract or freelance collaboration.

• Start date: As soon as possible.