Java Application Architect

Position Type

W2 contract

Job Description

We are looking for a highly experienced Java Application Architect III to lead the design, development, and continuous improvement of our enterprise-scale API gateway platform. This role is ideal for a technically deep engineer with extensive hands-on experience in API and gateway solutions, combined with strong architectural influence, standards enforcement, and best practice guidance across multiple teams.

Responsibilities

• Define and enforce API design standards, including RESTful principles, versioning, error handling, and backward compatibility.
• Lead the architecture and implementation of scalable, secure, and observable API gateway solutions supporting high-throughput, business-critical services.
• Drive the evolution of API management practices, including onboarding governance, lifecycle management, deprecation, and retirement strategies.
• Implement and optimize gateway functionalities such as routing, transformation, traffic management, authentication, and policy enforcement.
• Develop automation scripts and operational workflows using Python to improve platform reliability and efficiency.
• Design and implement automated API testing frameworks covering functional, integration, regression, and performance validation.
• Ensure comprehensive observability through metrics, logs, traces, alerting, and SLO-driven monitoring.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including application developers, security, and operations to align architecture with organizational standards.
• Mentor engineering teams, influence technical decisions, and shape platform-level improvements and best practices.
• Integrate API gateways with enterprise identity providers and security platforms, ensuring compliance and security.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience designing, building, and operating API platforms or gateway solutions in production environments.
• Deep expertise in API design: RESTful APIs, versioning, backward compatibility, and error-handling patterns.
• Strong experience with security protocols such as OAuth2, OpenID Connect, JWT, mTLS, and API key management.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot and resolve complex issues in high-throughput, distributed systems.
• Advanced proficiency in Java, with experience in API, gateway, or service-oriented architectures.
• Strong Python skills for automation, tooling, and operational workflows.
• Extensive experience with designing and implementing automated API testing (functional, integration, regression, performance).
• Expertise in observability and telemetry, including metrics, logs, traces, alerting, and SLO-driven monitoring.
• Hands-on experience with Git, code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code practices.

Preferred, But Not Required

• Experience with enterprise-grade API gateway platforms such as Apigee, Kong, Azure API Management, or AWS API Gateway.
• Strong understanding of API lifecycle management, including onboarding, governance, versioning, deprecation, and retirement at scale.
• Practical experience defining and enforcing traffic management and security policies like rate limiting, throttling, quotas, and request/response transformations.
• Familiarity with service mesh, ingress controllers, or edge routing technologies and their integration with API gateways.
• Experience integrating APIs with enterprise identity providers and security platforms.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment strategies for API gateway configurations.
• Exposure to performance/load testing to validate scalability, resiliency, and failure handling.
• Strong architectural mindset with the ability to identify systemic risks and drive platform-level improvements.
• Demonstrated leadership in mentoring engineers and influencing cross-team technical strategies.
• Excellent collaboration skills across application, platform, security, and operations teams.