How does Kotlin manage memory safety in long-running backend services?

Memory safety in Kotlin depends on avoiding leaks, controlling object retention, and managing coroutine scopes properly.

Long-running Kotlin services accumulate memory issues when objects are unintentionally retained through closures, caches, or coroutine scopes. JVM GC handles cleanup, but if references persist, memory leaks occur. Common issues include storing Activity-like contexts in static fields, unbounded caches, and never-cancelled coroutine jobs. Production systems mitigate this using weak references, bounded caches, and structured concurrency.