IT Software Engineer 5 / Lead Java Backend Developer

Job Title: IT Software Engineer 5 / Lead Java Backend Developer

Location: Chicago, IL preferred but the role can be 100% remote but
there will be travel involved when needed.

Duration: 12 months contract.

Position’s Contributions to Work Group:

·         Provides technical
leadership and delivery ownership for a team of software engineers building and
operating scalable cloud-native applications on AWS.

·         Drives architecture
decisions, engineering best practices, and solution design across Spring Boot
microservices, OpenSearch platforms, CI/CD, observability and AWS
infrastructure.

·         Collaborates with
product, architecture, and platform teams to deliver secure, resilient, and
high-performing solutions while mentoring engineers, improving development
processes, and ensuring successful execution of business objectives.

Typical task breakdown:

·         Leads software
engineers in delivering business-critical applications.

·         Establishes
technical direction and architectural standards.

·         Drives AWS cloud
adoption and modernization initiatives.

·         Ensures solution
scalability, performance, security, and reliability.

·         Promotes DevOps,
CI/CD, automation, and AI-assisted development practices.

·         Supports incident
resolution, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.

Interaction with team:

·         Mentors’ engineers
and develop technical talent.

·         Partners with Product
Owners, Architects, and stakeholders to align technology investments with
business goals.

Education & Experience Required:

·         Bachelor’s degree
is a must.

·         10+ years’
experience in this capacity with 5+ years in a lead role.

Required Technical Skills:

Java (latest would be ideal), Spring Boot, Microservices, REST APIs,
AWS (ECS/Fargate, IAM, ALB, RDS, CloudWatch, Secrets Manager),
OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, Docker, CI/CD, GitHub, Distributed Systems, Cloud
Architecture, Observability, DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, SQL/NoSQL
databases, Event-Driven Architecture, API Integration, Performance
Optimization, and AI-assisted Development Tools. 

Soft Skills:

Strong technical leadership, communication, stakeholder management,
mentoring and coaching, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking,
decision making, ownership, conflict resolution, adaptability, and the ability
to influence cross-functional teams while driving successful delivery of
complex cloud-native solutions.