Developer - Scala

*** Please note: This is a hybrid role requiring 3 days per week in our Barcelona office ***

Responsibilities

In this role you'll:

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services using Scala 2.13 and Play Framework in a Pekko-based environment.
• Build clean, testable, and maintainable code using functional programming principles, immutability, pattern matching, and asynchronous programming with Futures.
• Work with MySQL to design efficient data access patterns, optimize queries, tune indexes, and profile database performance.
• Develop, deploy, and support services in AWS, working closely with DevOps and platform teams to ensure reliable delivery.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, Git-based pull request workflows, code reviews, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with frontend engineers, QA, product owners, solution designers, and other backend developers to deliver high-quality product increments.
• Support production stability by investigating issues, improving observability, and continuously reducing technical debt.

Required Skills and Experience:

• Professional backend development experience, ideally in enterprise, SaaS, or cloud-based product environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with Scala, including collections, Futures, immutability, pattern matching, error handling, and clean functional design.
• Commercial experience with Play Framework or comparable JVM backend frameworks; Pekko or Akka experience is highly relevant.
• Strong understanding of relational databases, especially MySQL, with practical knowledge of SQL optimization, indexes, query profiling, and transaction behaviour.
• Experience using Redis or similar technologies for caching, session handling, or performance-sensitive workloads.
• Deep understanding of OOP principles, functional programming, concurrency, the Scala type system, and advanced architectural patterns (e.g., Tagless Final, type classes, effect systems).
• Ability to design and evolve complex distributed systems while promoting engineering best practices across the team
• Hands-on experience with AWS services and cloud-native delivery practices.
• Good understanding of CI/CD, Git, branching strategies, pull request flows, automated testing, and release practices.
• Ability to work effectively in distributed Agile teams, communicate clearly, and take ownership of complex technical problems.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with Squeryl, Doobie, or similar Scala data access libraries.
• Familiarity with Grafana or Kibana dashboards, alerting, logging, and production observability practices.
• Experience with large distributed systems, horizontal scaling, resilient service design, or high-throughput Play / Pekko applications.
• Previous experience in Payroll, HR, HCM, ERP, compliance-heavy, or localisation-focused product domains.
• Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish language skills would be beneficial, but are not essential.

Ways of Working:

• Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and able to balance new feature development with maintenance, bug fixing, and technical improvement work.
• Proactive in code reviews, design discussions, troubleshooting, and knowledge sharing across the engineering team.
• Strong problem-solving mindset, attention to detail, and willingness to work with an established codebase while helping modernise it over time.

Want to know more about our Product?: https://hcm.sage.com/

At Sage, we offer you an environment where you can grow professionally without compromising your personal well-being. Our benefits package is designed to provide stability, flexibility, and balance:

• Medical and dental insurance: Fully funded medical and dental insurance.
• Flexible benefits: Exchange part of your salary and make tax savings on meal and transport vouchers, childcare, and training.
• Well-being: Free access to the Calm app (for up to 5 users), 24/7 counselling, and emotional support from our Healthy Mind Coaches. We also offer self-care and parenting resources through the Cleo app.
• Flexible working: flexibility of working one hour in, one hour out, shortened workdays on Fridays and during the summer, and the opportunity to work from over 40 countries for up to 10 weeks per year through our Work Away program.
• Annual leave: 23 working days of vacation, 5 paid days per year for volunteering.
• Extended leave: 7 extra days of maternity leave and 5 extra days of paternity leave, on top of the legal allowance, available after one year of service.
• Financial support: Life and disability insurance, salary advances of up to 3.5 times your net monthly pay, a €300 net marriage bonus, and access to Sage's employee stock purchase plan at a discounted rate.
• Learning and development: Free premium subscription to external learning platforms

Health and Safety Responsibilities:

• Fostering the safety culture, by leading with your own example.
• Following established safety procedures and reporting potential hazards promptly helps maintain a secure and efficient workplace.
• Participating in safety training sessions and adhering to preventive guidelines and procedures, the objective is minimizing risks and protecting yourself and the rest of your colleagues.