Senior APIM / CXI Engineer Lead

Senior APIM / CXI Engineer Lead

Job location: Columbus, OH or Nashville, TN (both locations would be for on site work)

Duration: 6-8 MONTHS

Role Overview
The Senior APIM / CXI Engineer Lead is responsible for designing, building, and governing API and experience integration platforms that enable consistent, secure, and scalable customer and partner experiences. This role combines hands-on engineering, platform ownership, and technical leadership, serving as a bridge between backend systems, digital channels, and customer experience platforms.
The role plays a key part in API-first strategy execution, experience-layer enablement, and enterprise modernization initiatives.

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Key Responsibilities
API Management & CX Integration Leadership
Lead the design, implementation, and evolution of enterprise API management and CX integration platforms.
Establish and enforce API standards, patterns, and governance aligned to customer and partner experience needs.
Drive adoption of API-first and experience-led integration principles across delivery teams.
Act as the technical owner for experience and gateway-layer APIs.

API & Experience Engineering
Design and build REST, GraphQL, and experience-layer APIs (e.g., BFFs, Experience APIs).
Configure and manage API gateway capabilities including:
o Routing and mediation
o Security policies
o Throttling and rate limiting
o Caching and transformations
Implement API lifecycle management: design, versioning, deployment, deprecation, and retirement.
Support APIs tailored for mobile, web, omnichannel, and partner consumption.

Security, Identity & Trust
Implement API security controls such as:
o OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT
o mTLS and API key strategies
o Rate limiting and abuse protection
Integrate APIs with CIAM/IAM solutions.
Ensure APIs meet enterprise security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.

DevOps, Automation & Observability
Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for API and integration components.
Automate infrastructure and configuration using Infrastructure as Code.
Enable monitoring, logging, and tracing at the API and experience level.
Support zero-downtime deployments and resiliency patterns for customer-facing APIs.

CX Enablement & Performance
Partner with product, UX, and CX teams to align APIs to customer journeys.
Optimize APIs for performance, scalability, and reliability, especially under peak traffic.
Enable consistent error handling, response models, and SLA-driven behavior.

Technical Leadership & Governance
Serve as technical lead for APIM/CXI initiatives.
Mentor engineers and conduct API and integration design reviews.
Define reusable patterns, reference architectures, and best practices.
Collaborate with architects to align API platforms to business capabilities.

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Required Qualifications Technical Experience
8+ years of experience in software engineering, integration, or platform engineering.
4+ years of hands-on experience with API management platforms (e.g., Azure APIM, Apigee, MuleSoft, Kong, AWS API Gateway).
Strong expertise in RESTful API design, HTTP, and API modeling.
Experience designing experience-layer or BFF-style APIs.

Security & Cloud
Strong understanding of API security and identity patterns.
Experience operating APIs in cloud or hybrid environments (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform).
Solid networking fundamentals (TLS, DNS, load balancing).

DevOps & Tooling
CI/CD pipeline implementation and automation experience.
Infrastructure-as-Code expertise (Terraform, ARM/Bicep, CloudFormation).
Familiarity with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus.
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Preferred Qualifications
Experience supporting high-volume customer-facing digital platforms.
Exposure to CIAM, omnichannel CX platforms, or headless architectures.
Event-driven or async integration experience.
Cloud or API platform certifications.
Experience in regulated industries (banking, healthcare, telecom).
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Soft Skills & Leadership
Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
Ability to translate CX and business needs into scalable technical solutions.
Comfortable operating as both hands-on engineer and technical leader.
Ability to influence architecture and standards across teams.