Tech Lead/Engineering Lead

Title: Tech Lead/Engineering Lead 
Compensation: $90.00-$97.00/Hour
Location: Burbank, CA *Hybrid onsite requirement* 
Duration: 12 month contract 
Work Requirement: , Holder, or Authorized to work in the U.S. 

As part of the Studio Economics transformation, we are evolving how finance, business, and technology collaborate—shifting to lean-agile, user-centric small product-oriented delivery teams (PODs) that design and deliver integrated, intelligent, and scalable solutions.

As the Engineering Lead, you are the most senior engineer embedded in the pod. You own the technical execution, uphold engineering excellence, and guide the pod in building scalable, resilient, and maintainable solutions. You partner closely with the Technical Product Owner (TPO) and work alongside product, data, and platform teams to ensure delivery is not just timely—but aligned to our architecture standards, platform ecosystem, and long-term business goals.

This is a hands-on leadership role—you'll code, review, mentor, and architect, while fostering a culture of curiosity, craftsmanship, and continuous learning.

Job Responsibilities:
Architect & Evolve the POD's Technical Solution

• Define and evolve architecture aligned to our organization's platform and enterprise patterns, emphasizing modularity, composability, and scalability.
• Design and implement service boundaries, integration strategies, and APIs leveraging modern architectural approaches (e.g., event-driven, microservices, serverless).
• Collaborate with platform, data, and architecture teams to define consistent patterns for application layering, schema alignment, and observability.
• Balance pragmatic delivery with a vision for long-term extensibility—minimizing rework while avoiding premature complexity.
• Drive Engineering Excellence
• Lead coding standards, code reviews, and automated testing practices (unit, integration, and E2E).
• Guide adoption of best-in-class CI/CD workflows, observability, and infrastructure as code.
• Champion performance, security, and operational readiness in every stage of the software development lifecycle.
• Mentor and Empower the Engineering Team
• Serve as a player-coach—modeling strong engineering practices, pair programming, and problem solving in real-time.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers, helping them grow in system thinking, modern development, and technical decision-making.
• Encourage a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and experimentation.
• Ensure Quality, Performance, and Reliability
• Define and enforce non-functional requirements (e.g., latency, error budgets, fault tolerance).
• Surface technical risks early and propose mitigation strategies—whether performance bottlenecks, integration gaps, or legacy constraints.
• Embed testing, monitoring, and alerting into the development process to enable operational visibility and runtime stability.
• Partner Across Product and Platform
• Work with the TPO to shape a balanced backlog that delivers user value while addressing technical debt and foundational needs.
• Coordinate with platform and DevOps teams to align on shared services, environments, and deployment pipelines.
• Support technical spikes, proof-of-concepts, and rapid prototyping that accelerate product discovery and de-risk delivery.

Must Have Skills: 

• 8+ years in full-stack development
• Experience building distributed systems with strong proficiency in Java/Spring Boot, Angular (or React/Vue)
• DevOps fluency: Proven track record designing and delivering AWS-native architectures (Lambda, API Gateway/AppSync, Step Functions, EventBridge, DynamoDB/RDS, S3)
• 8+ years of CI/CD fluency: Hands-on with CI/CD pipelines.
• GitHub Actions or AWS CodePipeline), Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation/CDK/Terraform), and automated testing frameworks. You help the team maintain stability, automate deployments, and manage the integrity of development across environments (Dev, QA, Prod)

Soft Skills:
1)Lead From Within
You're hands-on, guiding the team not just through words but through code, collaboration, and curiosity.
2)Build with Purpose
You care not only about the "how” but also the "why.” You optimize for outcomes, not just output.
3)Navigate Complexity Pragmatically
You know when to deliver fast and when to invest in foundational work. You manage trade-offs with clarity and intention.
4)Uphold a Systemic View
You think beyond features and look at performance, observability, integration integrity, and long-term maintainability.
5)Coach, Don't Command
You elevate those around you by teaching, unblocking, and modeling—not micromanaging or gatekeeping.
6)Promote Adaptability
You know agility is more than ceremonies—it's about evolving continuously as a team, iterating with purpose, and learning from feedback.
What you'll bring
7)Platform & Integration Alignment
You've built applications that conform to enterprise patterns, used shared services and governed schemas, and participated in data integration and stewardship efforts alongside data engineers and architects.
8)Product-Oriented Engineering
You prioritize outcomes over output, advocate for customer-centric design, and support experimentation through rapid prototyping and iterative delivery.
9)Communication and Leadership Clarity
You bridge the technical and non-technical—clearly articulating trade-offs, progress, and risks to cross-functional partners and stakeholders.
10)Bias for Action
You are solution-oriented, unblock yourself and others, and take initiative even in ambiguity. You keep momentum moving.

Technology Requirements:
1)Full-Stack Depth & Breadth
Experience building distributed systems with strong proficiency in Java/Spring Boot, Angular (or React/Vue), and AWS-native architectures (e.g., Lambda, Step Functions, EventBridge, AppSync, DynamoDB).
2)DevOps and Automation Expertise
You've led teams through CI/CD transformations, working with tools like GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline, or Terraform/CDK, and helped establish reliable, repeatable release pipelines.


Years experience:

• 8+ years of experience building distributed systems with strong proficiency in Java/Spring Boot, Angular (or React/Vue), and AWS-native architectures (e.g., Lambda, Step Functions, EventBridge, AppSync, DynamoDB).