Backend Java Developer - Associate

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

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 Engineer III position at the Associate 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.

We are looking for a strong backend engineer with around 5 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 Work On

• 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

What We're Looking For

Core Engineering Skills

• Strong proficiency in Java as primary language (knowing python will be a huge plus)
• Solid understanding of HTTP fundamentals
• Strong grasp of object -oriented design, clean class modeling and design patterns
• Good command of data structures and collections, and when to use them
• Hands -on experience with multi -threaded and even driven systems
• Awareness of memory usage, time & 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 & write APIs for 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 to batch processing or 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 don't 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

Bonus Points

• Using AI tools to accelerate development, debugging, or learning new domains
• Mentoring junior engineers or being actively mentored yourself

What You Can Expect From the Interview Process

• Hands -on, real -world problem discussions
• No "tell me about yourself" or rsum 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 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 into your browser.

Expected base pay rates for the role will be between $90,0000 and $150,000 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's goal is to build and maintain a workforce that is diverse in experience and background but uniform in reflecting our standards of integrity and excellence. Consequently, our recruiting efforts reflect our desire to attract and retain the best and brightest from all talent pools. We want to be the first choice for prospective employees.

It is the policy of the Firm to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, age, sex, sex stereotype, gender, gender identity or expression, transgender, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, disability, marital and civil partnership/union status, pregnancy, veteran or military service status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversifying its workforce (M/F/Disability/Vet).