Java AWS Developer

IT Software Engineer 5

12 months

540 W. Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60661

Hybrid onsite for 3 days a week

Interview process: 2 Rounds- Technical screening and then a 2-hour panel with the team (In person if they are local)

Job Description:

The Lead Software Engineer will provide deep technical leadership for the design and implementation of Java based, cloud native systems on AWS, defining service architecture, data flows, and integration patterns to meet strict scalability, availability, and security requirements. This role will drive architectural decisions across microservices, event driven, and asynchronous processing patterns, ensuring clear service ownership and well defined contracts.
The position will lead development of core backend services using modern Java frameworks and AWS native patterns, including RESTful and event based APIs, message driven processing, and distributed data management. The Lead Engineer will guide adoption of AWS services such as managed compute, messaging, storage, and databases, and will define standards for infrastructure as code, resiliency, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation.
In addition, this role will establish technical best practices for CI/CD automation, observability, logging, metrics, and tracing to support reliable operation of distributed systems in production. By proactively identifying architectural bottlenecks, scalability constraints, and technical debt, the Lead Software Engineer will directly improve system performance, reliability, and long term maintainability while enabling the work group to scale features and throughput efficiently.

Typical task breakdown:
• Hands on development (Java / AWS): ~45–55%
Designing and implementing backend services, cloud native components, and core platform functionality.
• Production support & bug fixes: ~15–20%
Investigating and resolving defects, performance issues, and production incidents; implementing fixes and improvements to ensure system stability and reliability.
• Code reviews & technical design: ~15–20%
Reviewing pull requests, leading technical design discussions, and defining architecture and implementation standards.
• Technical collaboration & cross team alignment: ~5–10%
Participating in architecture reviews, integration discussions, and coordination with other engineering teams.
• Agile & required technical ceremonies: ~5–10%
Sprint planning, backlog refinement, stand ups, retrospectives, and necessary technical or operational calls.

Interaction with team:
The Lead Software Engineer will work closely with the engineering team to guide design and implementation of Java based services on AWS. The role will collaborate with other engineering teams to align on APIs, integrations, and shared cloud architecture. The position will also partner with Product Owners and engineering managers to translate requirements into technical solutions and align execution with delivery priorities.

Work environment:
- 3x days in office

Education & Experience Required:
- NO Degree required
- Must have 10+ years’ experience in this capacity
- At least 3+ years’ experience in leading a team is preferred.

Required Technical Skills
(Required)
• Strong AWS expertise, including designing and operating cloud native, highly available distributed systems
• Advanced Java and/or Kotlin in production environments
• Spring Boot for building microservices and REST APIs (e.g., Spring Web/MVC, dependency injection, configuration, actuator/health checks)
• Microservices architecture and distributed systems patterns (service boundaries, resiliency, fault tolerance)
• RESTful API design & implementation, including documentation (OpenAPI/Swagger)
• SQL + relational databases (data modeling, query tuning, performance)
• NoSQL / non relational data stores (e.g., DynamoDB/MongoDB/Cassandra)
• CI/CD and build/deploy automation (pipelines, quality gates, repeatable releases)
• Data streaming / asynchronous messaging (event driven patterns; e.g., Kafka)
• Observability & production troubleshooting (logging/metrics/tracing, incident investigation)

Soft Skills
(Required)
• Strong technical communication skills, able to clearly explain complex designs and trade offs to engineers, product owners, and managers
• Collaborative mindset with the ability to work effectively across teams on shared architectures and dependencies
• Technical leadership and ownership, driving decisions and follow through on complex engineering problems
• Problem solving and analytical thinking, especially in debugging, production support, and performance issues
• Ability to balance technical depth with delivery, making pragmatic decisions aligned with business priorities
• Comfortable participating in Agile ceremonies and technical discussions while remaining primarily hands on.