Java Developers in the UK

About Java Developers

Hire senior engineers for Java and Spring Boot backends: REST and gRPC APIs, microservices, batch jobs, and integrations with the systems you already run. You work directly with the developers on flat quotes, with a written scope, automated tests, and CI on every build. Choose one dedicated developer or a small product team, on a monthly rolling contract with no lock-in.

What the engagement includes

• Senior engineers only. You work directly with the person writing the code, never an account-manager layer or an offshore handoff.
• The backend fundamentals transfer directly: REST and gRPC API design, relational and NoSQL data modeling on PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MongoDB, Redis caching, and AWS deployment are the same disciplines whether the runtime is the JVM or Node.
• A written scope before any code is written, so both sides agree on what done means and what it costs.
• Automated tests (JUnit, Testcontainers, integration tests) and CI on every build, not tests bolted on at the end to tick a box.
• You own the GitHub repo, the cloud account, and the CI pipeline from day one, so there is a clean handover or exit whenever you want it.
• Flat INR quotes with GST for Indian clients, and USD, CAD, GBP, or AED via Wise for overseas teams. W-8BEN and LUT on file, 24-hour response.

Export licences for source code, the Cryptography Note and the NSI Act when a Java codebase goes to India

Handing an existing Java codebase to engineers in India is an export under UK law whenever the code, or the documents around it, count as controlled software or technology, and the Export Control Joint Unit's guidance on remote access leaves little room for argument about how it travels. The destination is wherever the recipient is, not where the server sits, so a repository hosted in London and cloned in India is a transfer to India. So is an email attachment, a design document shown on a screen share, or a laptop carried abroad, and sending it encrypted does not change the answer. Uploading controlled technology to cloud storage is not licensable while only people in the UK access it, which is why access controls rather than hosting regions decide the position. For most enterprise Java, a claims platform, a trading back office or a logistics system, none of this bites, because nothing in it appears on the UK Strategic Export Control Lists. The codebases where it does bite tend to be Java for a reason. Ground stations, simulators, test rigs and data processing for aerospace, defence, nuclear and telecoms suppliers are often written in it, and technology controls catch information necessary for the development, production or use of listed goods, which can include interface specifications, design documents and the source that embodies them. The military end-use control in article 12A of the Export Control Order 2008 can also reach items that are not listed at all. So before access is granted, your own classification of the repositories in scope comes first, and where any are controlled, the licence comes before the first clone. The practical side is an access list that names individuals and their locations, screen shares of restricted material agreed beforehand, and nothing mirrored outside the repository you control. Whether a particular repository is controlled is for your export compliance lead.

Encryption is where ordinary Java work meets the lists most often, because Category 5 Part 2 controls information security by what a product does, and the JCA, Bouncy Castle and a hardware security module reached through PKCS#11 are everyday tools in this stack. The control list of 16 December 2025 aims at cryptography for data confidentiality using a described algorithm, and its definition leaves out authentication, digital signatures, data integrity and non-repudiation, cryptography for medical records management, and operations specially designed for and limited to banking use or money transactions. Much bespoke Java falls into those exclusions, but that is a reasoned classification to write down, not an assumption. The ECJU's notice on the Cryptography Note corrects three things Java teams tend to believe. A product built on freely available open-source cryptographic libraries may still be controlled, because the product is classified as a whole rather than by its parts. Using a public algorithm such as AES or RSA does not take it out of control. And source code is unlikely to meet the Note at all, because a user can change the cryptography in it easily; the notice also gives offloading cryptographic operations to a hardware security module as a design that does not normally satisfy it. The licence people reach for is narrower than its name. The open general export licence for cryptographic development allows 5D002 software and 5E002 technology to go to most destinations, India among them, but only for use by the exporter's own subsidiary or parent, or by a business or academic collaborator working in cryptographic research and development under a prior agreement, with registration and records kept for at least three years. A general engineering supplier is not obviously that collaborator. So any module implementing confidentiality cryptography is identified at kick-off and its export position settled on its own, while the rest of the work proceeds around it. Classification is for your export compliance lead.

The National Security and Investment Act 2021 is usually thought of as a deals regime, but its idea of a trigger event is wide enough to reach a development contract. The government's guidance treats intellectual property, which it describes as ideas, information or techniques with industrial, commercial or other economic value, as a qualifying asset, and IP held anywhere qualifies if it is used in connection with activities in the UK or the supply of goods or services to people here. Control of an asset is acquired by gaining a right or interest that lets a person use it, or direct or control how it is used, and the guidance's own example says a contract providing rights to use another party's assets would be a qualifying acquisition. An agreement licensing an overseas supplier to use your source code, models and designs can take that shape. For most businesses it changes nothing in practice. Mandatory notification applies only to acquisitions of entities, not assets, so nothing has to be filed before work starts. But the government can call in an acquisition it reasonably suspects raises a national security risk up to five years after it took place, and within six months of becoming aware of one that was never notified. If your Java codebase sits in one of the sensitive areas the Act names, among them Defence, Military and Dual-Use, Communications, Data Infrastructure and Cryptographic Authentication, that power deserves a decision rather than silence, and a voluntary notification is the route the guidance offers a party that wants certainty. So the licence in the contract should be drafted narrowly: use only to perform the services, no right to sublicense or keep copies, return or destruction at exit, and named locations from which the code is used. Those terms limit exactly the use and control the Act measures, and they are the facts a notification would set out. Whether to notify is for your counsel.

How we work with UK clients

UK engagements tend to start with procurement questions rather than technical ones. Who holds the data, which law governs the contract, whether you can produce a record of processing if the ICO asks. We answer those in the proposal instead of leaving them to a legal review three weeks in, because that review is where UK projects usually stall.

Invoicing is the other thing worth settling early. We are outside the UK, so services we supply generally fall under the reverse charge and your finance team accounts for the VAT rather than paying it to us. Our invoices say so explicitly. We quote in pounds, the figure does not move with the exchange rate mid-project, and payment by bank transfer avoids the card fees that make a five-figure invoice unnecessarily expensive.

Questions UK clients ask

Java Developers: common questions

Other markets we work in