LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER – AI SYSTEMS / AGENTIC AI / JAVA
Chicago, IL or Peoria, IL | Hybrid – 2 Days Onsite | 12-Month Contract
*** DIRECT W-2 CANDIDATES ONLY – NO C2C OR THIRD-PARTY SUBMISSIONS ***
IMPORTANT CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS:
Candidates must currently reside within commuting distance of Chicago, IL or Peoria, IL and be available to work onsite 2 days per week.
This is a direct W-2 contract position. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States on a permanent basis without current or future employment sponsorship.
NO C2C, 1099, subcontracting, third-party agencies, staffing firms, or employer-sponsored/third-party candidates. We are only considering candidates who can work directly on our W-2.
POSITION SUMMARY
We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Software Engineer to architect and deliver next-generation software platforms powered by Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models (LLMs), and agentic AI workflows.
This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role combining deep backend software engineering and architecture expertise with production-level Generative AI and AI agent development.
The Lead Software Engineer will work across multiple engineering teams to design reliable, scalable AI systems, establish architectural standards, mentor engineers, and accelerate developer productivity through modern AI-assisted development tools.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
• Design and orchestrate multi-agent workflows and stateful AI systems using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, or CrewAI.
• Integrate foundation models such as Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT, and Google Gemini through secure APIs.
• Architect production-grade LLM and AI-powered applications.
• Design data architectures combining relational databases and vector databases for semantic search and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Implement testing and continuous evaluation strategies for AI outputs, including factual accuracy, hallucination detection, and safety.
• Design and lead scalable backend systems, microservices, and APIs using Java.
• Provide architectural leadership across distributed systems and cloud-native applications.
• Evaluate existing systems, services, APIs, and data models for modernization, scalability, and performance improvements.
• Drive AI-assisted engineering productivity by integrating development tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, and Windsurf into engineering workflows.
• Establish engineering standards and architectural governance for secure coding, CI/CD, and cloud-native deployment.
• Establish governance and security practices for responsible use of AI development tools.
• Lead architecture reviews, RFCs, and technical discussions across engineering teams.
• Mentor engineers and technical leaders on system design, software architecture, and engineering best practices.
• Drive automation, platform enablement, and self-service engineering capabilities.
• Collaborate with Product Owners, Technical Leads, Architects, Engineering Managers, and Scrum teams.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with 2+ years in a technical leadership role.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with 10+ years of experience; OR Master's degree with 8+ years of experience.
• Deep hands-on backend development experience using Java.
• Strong experience designing microservices, APIs, distributed systems, and cloud-native applications.
• Proven experience designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems.
• Strong software architecture and system design experience.
• Extensive experience with AWS.
• Strong experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Hands-on experience building production-level Generative AI, LLM-powered applications, AI agents, or intelligent automation platforms.
• Experience designing agentic AI workflows and multi-agent systems.
• Experience with prompt engineering and agentic development patterns.
• Experience with AI orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar.
• Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Experience with vector databases such as Pinecone, Milvus, Chroma, pgvector, or similar.
• Experience integrating foundation models such as Claude, GPT, Gemini, or similar through APIs.
• Strong knowledge of AI coding assistants and modern developer productivity tools.
• Understanding of Model Context Protocol (MCP).
• Experience establishing technical governance and engineering standards across multiple teams.
• Experience mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership across engineering teams.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
IMPORTANT – BACKEND ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE
This is NOT a front-end-focused AI development role. Candidates must have significant hands-on backend software engineering experience, including Java, APIs, microservices, distributed systems, and cloud architecture.
Candidates whose experience is primarily front-end development will not be considered.
INTERVIEW PROCESS
90-minute technical and coding interview. In-person interviews are preferred, with virtual interviews available when needed.
EMPLOYMENT / LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
• Must currently reside within commuting distance of Chicago, IL or Peoria, IL.
• Must be able to work onsite 2 days per week.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States on a permanent basis without current or future sponsorship.
• Must be able to work directly on our W-2.
• No C2C.
• No 1099.
• No third-party agencies or staffing firms.
• No subcontracting arrangements.
• No third-party/employer-sponsored candidate submissions.
Please do not submit candidates through a third-party employer or staffing organization.
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