Lead Java Full Stack Developer with AWS (14+ yrs)

Role: Lead Java Full Stack Developer with AWS
Location: Plano, TX / Jersey City, NJ (Hybrid)
Job Type: Contract

Skill Metrics:

Top skills required for this role:

About the Role:

Key Responsibilities:
Architecture & API Design
Own end-to-end API architecture (REST/GraphQL), including resource modeling, error schemas, versioning strategy and contract testing.
Design domain-aligned microservices (DDD), event-driven patterns (Kafka/SNS/SQS) and distributed workflows.
Define integration patterns (webhooks, event streaming, async queues, batch, CDC) and BFF (Backend-for-Frontend) layers for client needs.
Delivery & Engineering
Build Java 17+ / Spring Boot services; implement JPA/Hibernate, Spring Security, WebFlux, and Resilience4j for reliability.
Develop front-end features using React + TypeScript, focusing on performance, accessibility, and maintainable components.
Establish and enforce API standards (OpenAPI/Swagger), linting, and SDK generation where appropriate.
Cloud & DevOps (AWS)
Architect, implement, and operate workloads on AWS:
o Compute: ECS/Fargate, EKS, Lambda
o Networking: VPC, ALB/NLB, PrivateLink, API Gateway, Route 53
o Data: RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache/Redis, S3, OpenSearch
o Integration: SNS/SQS, EventBridge, Step Functions, Kinesis
o Security: IAM, KMS, Secrets Manager, WAF, Shield, Cognito/OIDC
Build secure CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions/Azure DevOps/Jenkins), IaC with Terraform/CloudFormation, and implement blue/green or canary deployments with automated rollbacks.
Implement observability: distributed tracing, structured logging, metrics and SLOs via CloudWatch/PrometheGrafana.
Leadership & Collaboration
Mentor engineers, lead code/design reviews, and foster engineering excellence.
Collaborate with Product, Architecture, and Security on roadmaps, discovery, and prioritization.
Champion documentation: API specs, runbooks, postmortems, and playbooks.

Required Qualifications:
14+ years professional software engineering experience; 3+ years architecting cloud-native services on AWS.
Expert in Java 11+/17, Spring Boot, REST, JSON, OpenAPI, and asynchronous messaging (SNS/SQS/Kafka).
Strong with integration patterns (sync/async), API versioning, backwards compatibility, schema evolution, and contract testing (Pact/WireMock).
Proficient with SQL (PostgreSQL/MySQL/Aurora) and at least one NoSQL (DynamoDB/DocumentDB); caching with Redis.
Proficient in CI/CD, IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation), Docker, and container orchestration (ECS/EKS).
Solid observability (logs, metrics, traces) and performance tuning (JVM, DB, API latency, throughput).
Security-first mindset: IAM, KMS, Secrets Manager, WAF, CORS, CSP, input validation.
Front-end capability with React + TypeScript (or Angular), including state mgmt (Redux/RTK/React Query), routing, and component design.

Tools & Tech Stack:
Back End: Java 17, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, WebFlux, JPA/Hibernate, Resilience4j
APIs: REST, GraphQL, OpenAPI/Swagger, Pact
Messaging & Events: Kafka/SNS/SQS, EventBridge, Kinesis
Data: PostgreSQL/Aurora, DynamoDB, Redis, S3, OpenSearch
Front End: React 18, TypeScript, Vite/Webpack, Jest, Cypress/Playwright
DevOps & Cloud: AWS (ECS/EKS/Lambda, API Gateway, ALB, Route 53, CloudFront), Docker, Terraform/CloudFormation, Jenkins, CloudWatch, Grafana/Prometheus

Preferred Qualifications:
Event-driven architectures with EventBridge/Kinesis, CDC (Debezium), and saga patterns (Step Functions/temporal-like orchestration).
GraphQL (Apollo/Federation) and BFF patterns; API monetization and developer portal experience.
Multi-account AWS strategy, landing zones, network segmentation, and service mesh (App Mesh/Istio).
Kubernetes (EKS), Helm, service autoscaling, pod disruption budgets, and cost optimization (Graviton/Spot).
Experience in regulated environments (PCI, SOC 2, HIPAA) and data privacy (PII, GDPR).