Java Track Lead with 15 years of experience - Columbus, OH

Track Lead Backend Architecture

Role Overview:

The Track Lead serves as the principal architect and technical leader, responsible for setting the architectural direction, driving technology strategy, and managing the delivery of complex backend solutions across multiple engineering teams. This role combines hands-on coding, deep architectural expertise, and strong leadership to ensure technical excellence and alignment with business objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define, communicate, and drive the overall backend architectural vision and strategy for multiple teams and applications, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
• Lead the design and review of complex solution architectures, making high-level design decisions and ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and best practices.
• Actively participate in hands-on coding, prototyping, and code reviews to set technical standards and mentor engineers.
• Manage and coordinate multiple engineering teams, providing technical guidance, resolving cross-team dependencies, and ensuring consistent implementation of architectural patterns.
• Collaborate closely vath stakeholders, product owners, and business leaders to gather requirements, translate them into technical solutions, and ensure alignment with organizational goals.
• Evaluate, recommend, and drive the adoption of new technologies, frameworks, and tools; lead proof-of-concept (POC) Initiatives and technology pilots to validate innovative solutions.
• Oversee cloud-native deployments (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform), containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes), and observability (Prometheus, Grafana, Dynatrace, Splunk) across teams.
• Ensure effective implementation of batch/data processing (Apache Spark, Spring Batch), data visualization (Tableau, Power BI}, and integration of Al/ML solutions.
• Manage project timelines, priorities, and resources across multiple teams, guiding them toward successful delivery and continuous improvement.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, innovation, and knowledge sharing through mentoring, training, and regular architectural forums.
• Maintain comprehensive technical documentation and ensure best practices in security, performance, and compliance are followed.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• 15+ years of backend engineering experience with deep architectural and hands-on coding expertise in Java, Spring Boot, microservices, REST APIs, and distributed/event-driven systems {Apache Kafka).
• Proven experience designing and implementing large-scale, cloud-native architectures (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform), containerization (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Strong background in observability and monitoring using Prometheus, Grafana, Dynatrace, and Splunk
• Experience with batch/data processing (Apache Spark, Spring Batch) and data visualization tools {Tableau, Power Bl).
• Demonstrated ability to lead and manage multiple engineering teams, resolve crass-team technical challenges, and drive consistent architectural standards.
• Strong project management skills: managing timelines, priorities, and resources, and guiding teams to successful outcomes.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience with Al/ML project integration and Al-assisted development tools is a plus.
• Passion for mentoring, technical leadership, and fostering a high-performance engineering culture.