Software Engineer - Backend

About the role

In the Technology division, we leverage innovation to build the connections and capabilities that power our Firm, enabling our clients and colleagues to redefine markets and shape the future of our communities.

This is a Software Engineering position at the Director level, which is part of the job family responsible for developing and maintaining software solutions that support business needs.

Morgan Stanley is an industry leader in financial services, known for mobilizing capital to help governments, corporations, institutions, and individuals around the world achieve their financial goals.

Interested in joining a team that’s eager to create, innovate and make an impact on the world? Read on.

Build real systems. Own real problems. Ship at scale.

We are looking for a strong backend engineer with around 4+ years of hands-on experience building and operating production-grade services. This role is for engineers who enjoy thinking through ambiguity, designing clean abstractions, and understanding how systems behave under load, failure, and change.

If you like solving real engineering problems, not toy puzzles, and want to work close to distributed systems, APIs, data, and platform concerns, this role is for you.

What you’ll do in the role:

Designing and building new backend services and APIs from scratch

Working on distributed systems with real scalability, latency, and reliability constraints

Making thoughtful trade-offs across performance, consistency, and complexity

Writing clean, maintainable, and testable code that others enjoy working with

Owning services end-to-end: design - build - deploy - operate

Debugging production issues and improving system resilience over time

Core Engineering Skills

Strong proficiency in Java and Python as primary languages for backend engineering

Solid understanding of HTTP fundamentals

Strong grasp of object-oriented design, clean class modeling, and design patterns with multi-threaded and event-driven systems

Awareness of me

Good command of data structures and collections, and when to use them

Hands-on experience with multi-thread and event-driven systems.

Awareness of memory usage, time and space complexity

Framework & Platform Knowledge

Experience with dependency injection and lifecycle management

Understanding of AOP concepts (advice, pointcuts, cross-cutting concerns)

Experience with transaction management

Familiarity with connection pools and resource management

System Design & Distributed Systems Exposure

Experience designing read and write APIs focused on stability, scalability, and performance

Exposure to real-world event-driven systems, pub-sub patterns, and fault tolerance

Familiarity with caching strategies (local and distributed)

Practical understanding of batch processing and data pipelines is a plus

Practical understanding of logging, monitoring, and observability

Working knowledge of security fundamentals (authentication, authorization, encryption)

How You Work

You are comfortable thinking out loud and reasoning through problems

You do not need perfectly defined requirements to get started

You focus on clarity, correctness, and simplicity

You can explain why you made a design choice, not just what you built

You take ownership and follow problems through to resolution

What You Can Expect From the Interview Process

Hands-on, real-world problem discussions

No tell me about yourself or resume walkthroughs

Focus on how you think, design, and reason

Interactive conversations, not trivia or puzzle solving

Why Join Us

Work on meaningful systems with real impact

Engineering culture that values depth over buzzwords

Opportunity to grow into system design and ownership roles

Smart peers, real problems, and room to think

What you’ll bring to the role:

Strong proficiency in Java and Python for backend application development.

Solid understanding of Object-Oriented Design, Design Patterns, and data structures.

4+ years of relevant experience.

Experience building scalable REST APIs and distributed systems.

Hands-on experience with multi-threaded and event-driven systems.

Experience with messaging/pub-sub systems and event-driven architectures.

Exposure to batch processing and data pipeline technologies.

Knowledge of Spring Framework, dependency injection, AOP, and transaction management.

Familiarity with databases, caching, connection pooling, and resource management.

Understanding of security fundamentals, logging, monitoring, and observability.

Experience with unit testing, CI/CD pipelines, and agile development practices.

Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.

Comfortable working in globally distributed teams and collaborating with business stakeholders.

Nice to Have:

Experience with BDD testing frameworks and tools.

Work in an open environment where everyone can express their views and make significant contributions.

Comfortable working in globally distributed teams and collaborating with business stakeholders.

Nice to Have:

Experience with BDD testing frameworks and tools.

Working an open environment where everyone can express their views and make significant contributions.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM MORGAN STANLEY:

At Morgan Stanley, we raise, manage and allocate capital for our clients – helping them reach their goals. We do it in a way that’s differentiated – and we’ve done that for 90 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices​ into your browser.

Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $120,000 and $170,000 per year at the commencement of employment. However, base pay if hired will be determined on an individualized basis and is only part of the total compensation package, which, depending on the position, may also include commission earnings, incentive compensation, discretionary bonuses, other short and long-term incentive packages, and other Morgan Stanley sponsored benefit programs.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a workforce that is diverse in experience and background. Our recruiting efforts reflect our strong commitment to a culture of inclusion, where individuals are hired, developed, and advanced based on their skills and talents.

Our workforce reflects a broad cross-section of the global communities in which we operate, bringing a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences.

For more information, please visit: https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/eeo.