 <p>OK...two things first that are not related to your problem:</p> <ol> <li>There's no need to use a build.ajproperties file. This is calculated automatically.</li> <li>You'll probably want to add a <code>testCompile</code> goal to the executions, otherwise your test classes won't be woven.</li> </ol> <p>The answer lies with the fact that you are using AspectJ with ITDs, but the maven compiler runs before the AspectJ compiler and fails (because ITDs have not been woven). It doesn't look like there is a clean answer, but have a look at this question:</p> <p><a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14614446/how-do-i-disable-the-maven-compiler-plugin">How do I disable the maven-compiler-plugin?</a></p> <p>I never followed up and tried all of the solutions suggested there, but I do know that the following would work in single-pom scenario:</p> <ol> <li><code>&lt;aspectDirectory&gt;src/main/java&lt;/aspectDirectory&gt;</code> to <code>&lt;aspectDirectory&gt;src/main/aspect&lt;/aspectDirectory&gt;</code></li> <li>move all source files from <code>src/main/java</code> to <code>src/main/aspect</code> (or at least move the files that rely on the ITDs being woven).</li> </ol>