Java / Spring Engineers (DV Clearance Essential)

  • Hays Specialist Recruitment Limited
  • Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
  • Oct 23, 2026
Full time I.T. & Communications

Job Description

Java Software Engineer (DV Cleared Essential)
Cheltenham - Hybrid, 3 days per week
Up to £110,000 + Benefits

Must Have's
Must hold active UK DV Clearance.
Must have 5+ years' commercial experience developing software using core Java.
Must be able to work from Cheltenham 3 days per week.

Your new company
This specialist UK technology business develops highly secure, resilient software solutions that solve complex cross-domain problems for organisations operating within defence and national security.

Founded by experienced engineers specialising in complex cross-domain challenges, the company has built its reputation around technical excellence and solving problems where security, resilience and quality really matter.

Their technology helps organisations safely move and protect highly sensitive information, with solutions informed by National Cyber Security Centre guidance and modern cloud technologies.

This is an opportunity to join a genuinely engineering-led environment where technical expertise, autonomous thinking and collaborative problem-solving are actively encouraged.

Your new role
As a Java Software Engineer, you'll join an agile engineering team developing components for complex cross-domain security systems. This is much broader than simply receiving tickets and writing code. You'll be involved throughout the full software development lifecycle, from understanding the requirement and shaping the technical solution through to development, testing, deployment and ongoing support.

Java will be at the heart of your work, building modern backend applications and Microservices using technologies including Spring Boot, AWS, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB and RabbitMQ. You'll also work in modern containerised and automated environments incorporating Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, GitLab and Linux.

You'll investigate new technologies, solve challenging technical problems and work closely with other engineers through practices such as TDD, BDD, pair programming and code reviews. You'll also have exposure to deployment pipelines and DevOps, giving you genuine ownership beyond the application code itself.

For an experienced Java Engineer who enjoys understanding why something is being built as much as how to build it, this offers the chance to work on technically demanding software where security, performance and resilience are fundamental to the product.

What you'll need to succeed
You'll need a minimum of 5+ years commercial software development experience using core Java and must currently hold active UK DV clearance.

You should be comfortable developing modern Java applications and ideally have strong experience with Spring Boot and Microservices. Exposure to AWS services such as S3, Fargate, Lambda, SQS and SNS would be highly beneficial, alongside experience of REST APIs, relational or NoSQL databases and modern CI/CD and containerisation technologies.

The wider environment includes PostgreSQL, Oracle, MongoDB, DynamoDB, RabbitMQ, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, Git/Bitbucket and GitLab, so you don't need to have used every technology listed, but experience across a modern cloud-native Java environment will translate well.

Most importantly, you'll need to enjoy solving difficult technical problems collaboratively and be comfortable working in an agile engineering environment incorporating TDD, BDD, continuous delivery and DevOps principles.

What you'll get in return
You'll receive a salary of up to £110,000 alongside the opportunity to work on technically complex, security-critical systems within an engineering-led organisation.

The wider benefits package includes an 8% employer pension contribution, flexible working hours, a £1,000 annual training and development budget, an electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme, Cycle to Work scheme and Death in Service cover.

You'll be joining a company that explicitly encourages engineers to challenge existing approaches, bring new ideas to the table and take ownership of their own professional development.

What you need to do now
To find out more and to be considered for this position please apply directly, or contact Max Wilcock, Business Director on .

At Hays Technology, we are shaping the future of recruitment. The rapid adoption of cloud, which is making customer interfaces more engaging and creating a seamless engagement with businesses, means that from the foundation of your organisation up, software developers are critical to success. As the competition for talent grows, we're ready and waiting to help developers really make an impact on organisations, so talk to us today. We are Hays Technology.

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