Middleware Architect

Job at a Glance

• Title: Middleware Architect
• Location: Wilmington, DE (hybrid) 
• Contract: W2 only, 6 month contract to hire
• Pay: $150k-$160k optional medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match

Overview

The Middleware Architect is a senior individual contributor and technical leader, responsible for leading deep, complex, and/or high-risk technical projects. This role supports the organization by providing context and technical direction, defining technical specifications, developing reusable technical patterns, automating manual processes and tasks, and delivering robust and scalable solutions. They work closely with architects and other engineers to build target architectures and roadmaps to drive modernization efforts.

Key Responsibilities

• Establishes and instantiates engineering standards, patterns, and best practices within the Enterprise Content Management and Middleware teams and across other infrastructure teams.
• Learns and assesses current-state platforms to develop target state architectures and roadmaps for modernization.
• Stays abreast of vendor roadmaps and makes recommendations for including new features into target state architectures and roadmaps.
• Influences buy-in and change through problem breakdown, business cases, data gathering and analysis, and sound judgment.
• Partners with leaders, peers, centralized and subsidiary groups to create transparency of current state, future state, challenges, expected timelines and risks.
• Collaborates with Enterprise Architecture to align solutions with strategic direction.
• Sets technical direction for application engineering teams, providing expertise in modern integration, automation, containerization, cloud, and DevOps practices.
• Effectively leads the evaluation, design, and implementation of key projects within the Middleware team and across other infrastructure teams.
• Mentors and coaches other engineers, fostering growth in autonomy, critical thinking, problem solving, and technical maturity.
• Leads code reviews, architectural discussions, and technical assessments.
• Identifies and solves difficult and challenging technical problems, often beyond the capability of others on the team.
• Performs comprehensive reviews on system changes.
• Ensures reliability, performance, scalability, and security of application platforms.
• Guides and validates proper monitoring and observability of applications and infrastructure.
• Develops and maintains technical and process documentation.
• Partners with business/application stakeholders to identify and understand problems/opportunities and translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Communicates complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Promotes innovation and challenges the status quo.
• Identifies and addresses technical debt, process inefficiencies, and opportunities for automation.
• Stays current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices.

Required Skills

• 8+ years’ progressive engineering experience designing/developing/engineering solutions and leading multiple large scale and/or cross-domain initiatives.
• 4+ years’ application development experience using object-oriented design, decoupled architecture, middleware, messaging, API development, and monitoring tools using Java, .NET, and/or different JavaScript libraries and frameworks.
• 3+ years’ experience using authentication, certificate, keys, secure parameters, and code scanning tools within applications and application development processes.
• 2+ years’ experience with multiple scripting languages (SQL, Python, JavaScript, PowerShell, Bash, Go, Ruby, etc.).
• 2+ years’ experience working on public cloud platforms and architectures (Azure, AWS, GCP).
• 2+ years working with third-party application, middleware, and/or infrastructure services.
• Ability to thrive and produce results with little or no supervision in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills with the ability to interact seamlessly at different organizational levels with both technical and business stakeholders across the company.
• Ability to describe complex problems (technical or organizational) concisely, accompanied by thoughtfully proposed solutions.
• Strong customer service focus and sense of urgency.
• Ability to quickly adapt and learn modern technologies, methods, tools, and systems.
• Uses advanced techniques, approaches, and processes to complete and influence work.
• Superior problem solving and analytical skills.
• Ability to create an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration.
• Ability to look at the “big picture” and see opportunities for improvement.
• Ability to break opportunities for improvement into bite-sized chunks that can be pursued on a project-by-project basis.

Preferred Skills

• 2+ years’ experience as an Infrastructure, Systems, Integration, Software, or Solutions Architect.
• 3+ years’ experience using modern DevOps and deployment practices and tools (e.g., pipelines, A/B testing/deployment, Canary deployments, Configuration as Code (CaC), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), etc.).
• 2+ years’ experience using IBM platforms and tools (e.g., IBM FileNet, IBM BAW, IBM ODM, IBM MQ, IBM WebSphere).
• 2+ years’ experience using Kubernetes, ECS, Docker, and/or other container orchestration environments/tools.
• 2+ years using Agile development methodologies.
• 2+ years’ experience with Tomcat/Apache or other web application runtime environment.
• Work history in financial services or insurance industries.

Why Should I Apply?

This position offers the opportunity to lead innovative technical projects within a dynamic organization, supporting modernization efforts and strategic initiatives. If you are a seasoned engineer with a passion for solving complex problems and driving technological advancement, this role is an excellent fit.

About CEI:

As a trusted technology partner, CEI delivers solutions that help our customers transform their business and achieve meaningful results. From strategy and custom application development through application management - our technology and digital experience services are tailored to meet each unique need of our customers. Our staffing solutions bring specialized skills to complement our customers' workforce and project requirements.

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