Senior Hibernate/JPA ORM Engineer

Position Summary

The Senior Hibernate/JPA ORM Engineer is responsible for architecting, managing, optimizing, and ensuring the performance and reliability of the enterprise persistence layer supporting multiple Java-based applications. This role is critical to enabling scalable, secure, data-driven systems by designing efficient ORM strategies, optimizing queries, enhancing transaction handling, and collaborating with development teams to ensure high-performing integrations with backend databases.

The engineer will oversee ORM configuration, troubleshoot performance bottlenecks, enforce data integrity, and support modernization initiatives across both on-premise and cloud-based environments.

As we continue modernizing our enterprise platforms, we are seeking a Senior Hibernate/JPA ORM Engineer to lead the evolution of our Java-based persistence architecture. This role offers an exciting opportunity within an innovative, growing company with a backlog extending more than three years.

Key Responsibilities

ORM Architecture & Persistence Management

• Design, configure, and maintain Hibernate/JPA persistence layers across multiple environments, including cloud-hosted databases.
• Develop and optimize entity models, relationships, fetch strategies, and schema mappings aligned with application and business requirements.
• Integrate Java persistence with Infor SyteLine V10.x, Salesforce Sales Cloud, and related enterprise systems.
• Establish best practices for ORM usage, including naming standards, caching strategies, and transaction handling.

Performance Tuning & Optimization

• Monitor and optimize persistence performance, reducing database load and improving application responsiveness.
• Analyze SQL generated by Hibernate and enhance performance through strategic indexing, batching, lazy/eager loading optimization, and query tuning.
• Identify and resolve N+1 issues, excessive joins, inefficient fetch plans, and transaction bottlenecks.
• Use Hibernate statistics, profiling tools, and database monitoring utilities to drive continuous improvement.

Caching, Transactions & Reliability

• Design robust transaction management strategies, supporting distributed transactions where required.
• Ensure data consistency and reliability across high-availability architectures.
• Collaborate on application-level backup and recovery strategies related to data access layers.

Security & Compliance

• Enforce secure coding and ORM best practices to protect sensitive data.
• Ensure adherence to data governance, auditing, and regulatory requirements.
• Work with the security team to identify vulnerabilities within application-layer data access implementations.

Scalability & Capacity Planning

• Evaluate and optimize ORM configurations and database interactions to support business growth.
• Participate in planning for infrastructure scaling, including cloud migrations and performance load testing.
• Enhance storage utilization and query throughput across on-prem and cloud environments.

Troubleshooting & Issue Resolution

• Diagnose and resolve application-level data access issues, including slow queries, deadlocks, locking, concurrency challenges, and transactional anomalies.
• Provide on-call support for critical incidents involving persistence-layer failures or performance degradation.
• Ensure rapid resolution and minimal downtime through an established escalation process.

Collaboration & Documentation

• Work closely with Java development teams to support deployments, new features, major refactoring efforts, and platform upgrades.
• Provide guidance on JPA/Hibernate best practices, query writing, and data-access patterns.
• Lead complex ORM projects ensuring scalability, maintainability, and performance.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for ORM architecture, configuration standards, optimization techniques, and troubleshooting procedures.

Miscellaneous Responsibilities

• Mentor and support team members in Hibernate, JPA, and persistence-layer best practices.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Supervision of Personnel

• None.

Qualifications

Required

• 5+ years of professional experience working with Hibernate/JPA in enterprise Java applications, including 3+ years in a senior or lead role.
• Expert-level understanding of ORM design, entity modeling, caching, and SQL generation.
• Proven experience optimizing ORM performance, including fetch strategies, batching, indexing, and query tuning.
• Strong familiarity with relational databases (e.g., MySQL Server, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server) and how Java applications interact with them.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate cross-functionally.
• Strong analytical and critical-thinking skills with consistent on-time delivery.

Preferred

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Experience integrating Java applications with enterprise systems, including ERP solutions like Infor SyteLine V10.x and Salesforce Sales Cloud.
• Certifications such as Oracle Certified Professional: Java SE, Spring Professional Certification, or cloud database certifications.
• Experience with Infor SyteLine V9.00.30 or V10.x.
• Familiarity with NoSQL databases or hybrid persistence architectures.
• Experience with enterprise backup tools such as Cohesity DataProtect.

Location

The position is fully remote with minimal travel required to IEM facilities or industry conferences.