During December 2024, contributed backend development work to the hhru/nuts-and-bolts repository by implementing the Kafka Retry Message Topic Preservation Header feature. This enhancement added the x-retry-receive-topic header to Kafka retry messages, allowing the kafka-retry-service to route retries back to their original topics. The solution, developed in Java and leveraging Kafka’s messaging capabilities, preserved the source topic within message headers during retries, ensuring accurate routing and improved message flow reliability. This approach enhanced observability and traceability for retry operations, supporting better analytics and troubleshooting while reducing the risk of misrouted retries in distributed backend systems.