Senior Kotlin Developer Retail Media (Springboot, Kafka, Java)

About the Role
This role sits within the Albert Heijn Tech organization and reports directly to the Engineering Manager Retail Media. As a Senior Developer for Retail Media, you play a pivotal role in developing and optimizing In-store (Retail) Media solutions that have a tangible impact on our customers, suppliers (advertisers), and internal teams. You are the technical reference point for the team, translating complex business needs into actionable user stories and robust technical solutions.

This is how you will reinvent food retail.

• You design, build and maintain scalable and reliable in-store media solutions using Kotlin and modern backend technologies.
• You translate business and marketing requirements into technical solutions and high-quality user stories that deliver value for our customers and partners.
• You act as the technical guide within the team, ensuring that business needs are clearly translated into technical deliverables.
• You collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, vendors, and stakeholders to ensure seamless integration and delivery of new features.
• You continuously improve our systems by identifying bottlenecks, troubleshooting issues, and implementing best practices for code quality and performance.

The Assignment
You will develop the needs of Albert Heijn Retail Media Services and Albert Heijn Marketing into concrete input for the team, aligning this with the broader product vision. As a senior team member, you are responsible for drafting and refining user stories, ensuring technical feasibility. Your goal is to create solutions that are not only valuable but also practical and effective for our businesses. In the dynamic and fast-evolving Retail Media landscape, you will use a wide range of tools and systems to drive the best possible results. You will be responsible for implementing the (new) Retail and Marketing solutions for in-store environments and work on the largest screen network in the Netherlands (9000+ screens). Collaborating closely with your own team members, as well as with Vendors and AH Teams to streamline functional and technical setups.

Cross-functional Responsibilities
You ensure successful implementation and integration of digital media solutions (including APIs and Kafka), and the offline booking environment. You take a proactive role in tooling and process design and work with key third parties such as Vistar, André Media, Zebra etc.

Your new team and office.
Together with your team you will work on inspiring projects to accelerate our transition into a hybrid Food & Tech company. We want to leverage data and technology to future-proof food shopping and give our customers accessibility to healthy food more easily available for everyone. At Albert Heijn, you team up with inspiring peers in the data, digital and tech domains. A community of diverse individuals who share a common goal; to create digital solutions that make (online) shopping simpler and more inspiring. Are you ready to reinvent the way millions of people buy and enjoy their food? We invest heavily in data, digital and tech. And that includes investing in your career! Our teams work in a hybrid way: both from home as well as in the office. We are located right next to the train station Zaandam.

What we offer.

• An annual salary up to 92k including holiday allowance and a flexible bonus, depending on your experience.
• 45 days of paid leave: 25.5 regular vacation days and 19.5 ADV days.
• Flexible working hours.
• Access to a challenging training curriculum – AH Tech Academy.
• An excellent pension plan where we as an employer contribute 4.5 times more than you as an employee.
• A travel allowance or a NS-business card for traveling to and from Zaandam by train.
• Attractive discounts on various insurance policies.
• 10% staff discount on groceries in all Albert Heijn stores, up to €300 per year.
• A free Mijn Albert Heijn Premium membership with many benefits.
• A company laptop and telephone.

The recipe for maximum impact:

Technical skills

• Strong understanding of asynchronous communication patterns (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar message queues).
• 5+ years in Java/Kotlin development, with knowledge about Spring Boot, and event-driven architecture with tools such as Kafka.
• Proven experience in drafting and refining user stories, and translating business requirements into technical solutions.
• Solid background in test automation, including end-to-end integration tests (preferably without relying on mock data).
• Familiar with observability best practices and hands-on experience in monitoring, logging, and alerting.

Soft skills

• Able to facilitate discussions and guide integration decisions, not just writing code.
• Provide a proactive attitude, take initiative, and collaborate effectively across teams and with external partners.
• You have a strong backbone, stand for technical quality, and don’t compromise under pressure for quick fixes.
• You are the technical reference point for the team and help others grow by sharing your knowledge.

Team culture

• Committed to quality, both in software craftsmanship and in ways of working.
• You are a “voice raiser”, someone who speaks up when things aren’t right and constructively drives improvement.

"I realized how much impact you can truly have as an individual, working for such a huge international company.”

Be courageous

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Live wholeheartedly

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Keep growing

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