Senior Backend Developer (Python, Java)

Location

Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Salary

EUR 5,500 - 6,450 / month

Company

Akash pawar

Job description

Role & Company / Project Overview: Legal AI is only as good as the knowledge behind it. At Lefebvre Sdu, we've been building that knowledge for over 200 years. As the Dutch heart of Lefebvre Group, the European leader in legal and tax knowledge, we're developing our own platform: GenIA-L, where lawyers and tax advisors don't just get an answer, but an answer they're willing to attach their name to. More than 75,000 professionals use it daily, generating over 100 million euros in ARR across Europe. We are looking for a Senior Backend Developer to join our Knowledge Team, acting as the critical layer between content and AI. Key Responsibilities & Daily Duties: • Pull in millions of documents from internal databases, public sources, and the web, standardize them, and make them usable for AI agents that distill answers from them. • Solve critical selection and reranking challenges ensuring exactly the correct legal passage surfaces to prevent erroneous answers and liability issues. • Modernize and rebuild foundations of a 6-year-old pipeline built in Scala and Java, targeting areas with the highest real gains. • Build and improve the pipeline that turns content into knowledge for AI agents. • Work directly on reranking quality so the agent receives the right information rather than just volume. • Help shape the strategic approach to retrieval and knowledge extraction, introducing proven external practices. • Develop in Python for all new features/components, and work in Java where the existing codebase requires it. • Make independent technical decisions and take end-to-end backend ownership. • Participate actively in team scrum rituals (dailies, refinements, retros, planning) and manager one-on-ones. • Act as a technical point of contact for application administrators and customer support, communicating technical concepts clearly to non-technical colleagues. Required Qualifications, Skills & Experience: • Strong engineering mindset looking beyond tickets to understand customer impact and business value. • Demonstrated experience with Python and Java (new components built in Python aligned with AI teams; substantial existing codebase in Java). • Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch (key for agent retrieval). • Experience with Scala or Kotlin is a plus (ingestion layer runs largely on Scala). • Background in SaaS, product-driven organizations, or scale-ups, thriving on autonomy rather than oversight. • Strong communication skills and willingness to voice opinions and make technical calls independently. Working Hours, Shifts & Location Details: • Location: Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands (office within walking distance of Voorburg station). • Work Arrangement: Hybrid, with two days a week in the office in The Hague, and remote flexibility for the rest of the week. • Working Hours: Standard full-time workweek of 36 hours. Compensation & Benefits: • Base salary: €5,500 to €6,450 per month based on a 36-hour week. • Fixed year-end bonus of 4% and profit sharing up to 6% tied to company performance. • Performance-based bonus up to 10% based on company and individual performance. • 23 vacation days plus a personal choice budget of 12% (8% holiday pay and 4% freely allocable, including buying extra leave). • Solid pension plan through PGB, including supplementary partner insurance. • Collective insurance plans. • Travel allowance of €0.25 per km or full public transport reimbursement, plus an attractive bike plan (adjusted arrangement for commutes <10 km or >60 km). • Professional growth opportunities in craft, role, and organization. Application Instructions: • Send CV for review; response typically within a few business days. • Selection process includes a reference check and a VOG (certificate of good behaviour).