Senior AWS Developer

Title: Senior AWS Developer

Location: Remote

Hire Type: Contract

Job Description:

Position Overview

We are seeking a Senior AWS Developer to lead the modernization of a mission-critical application supporting a federal customer. This is a hands-on senior engineering role focused on lifting and re-architecting an existing application onto modern AWS cloud-native services.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the technical modernization of a legacy application, migrating workloads to AWS using cloud-native, serverless, and containerized architectures.
• Design and implement scalable, secure, and resilient services using AWS Lambda, ECS/EKS, API Gateway, RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB, S3, SQS/SNS, and Step Functions.
• Refactor monolithic components into microservices and event-driven workflows where appropriate.
• Build and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and/or AWS CloudFormation/CDK.
• Establish and maintain CI/CD pipelines (e.g., AWS Code Pipeline, GitHub Actions, Jenkins) with automated testing, security scans, and deployment gates.
• Apply cloud security best practices, including IAM least-privilege design, KMS encryption, VPC design, and compliance with FedRAMP, FISMA, and NIST 800-53 controls.
• Collaborate with architects, product owners, and government stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Mentor junior developers, conduct code reviews, and drive engineering quality standards.
• Deliver against the 4-month modernization milestone and support post-delivery operations through the duration of the engagement.
• Build full stack application features end-to-end, including responsive front-end interfaces, RESTful and event-driven APIs, business logic, and data layer integration.

Required Qualifications

• Active U.S. Secret Clearance — must be current and verifiable prior to start.
• 8+ years of professional software development experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on AWS experience designing and deploying production workloads.
• Strong proficiency in at least one of the following: Python, Java, Node.js, or .NET Core.
• Demonstrated experience modernizing legacy applications (e.g., monolith-to-microservices, on-prem-to-cloud, COTS replacement, mainframe offload).
• Hands-on expertise with core AWS services: Lambda, ECS or EKS, API Gateway, RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB, S3, IAM, CloudWatch, VPC.
• Solid experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or AWS CDK).
• Proven experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps practices.
• Strong understanding of RESTful API design, authentication patterns (OAuth2, SAML, JWT), and microservices integration.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum delivery environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills suitable for federal customer engagement.
• Demonstrated full stack delivery experience across front-end, back-end, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into full stack applications (e.g., Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, or third-party LLM APIs).

Preferred Qualifications

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional or AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional.
• Experience with AWS GovCloud (US) environments.
• Familiarity with FedRAMP Moderate/High, FISMA, or NIST 800-53 control implementation.
• Experience with observability tooling (CloudWatch, X-Ray, Datadog, Splunk, or ELK).
• Experience with Kubernetes, Helm, and service mesh technologies.
• Experience developing modern, accessible front-end experiences using React, TypeScript, and current component libraries, with attention to performance, usability, and Section 508 compliance.