Lead Java Software Engineer AWS Microservices

Temporary full-time role (10-month duration) based in Chicago, IL (hybrid: 2 days in office Monday and Wednesday).

About the role

Lead Software Engineer providing technical leadership in the design, development, testing, and deployment of a state-of-the-art digital platform hosted on AWS. This role will build a world-class platform to host a wide range of digital applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of enterprise-scale REST APIs and microservices using Java 21+, Spring Boot, Apigee API Gateway, and AWS cloud services.
• Architect API-first solutions; define service contracts, payload schemas, and OpenAPI/Swagger specifications.
• Lead solution decomposition by breaking business requirements into technical designs, user stories, and implementation tasks.
• Guide engineers in developing secure service-to-service integrations using OAuth 2.0, JWT, and enterprise entitlement-based authorization models.
• Serve as the technical lead for complex initiatives, driving architecture decisions, design reviews, and code reviews.
• Collaborate with product owners, UI development teams, architects, and partner teams to ensure successful delivery of customer-focused solutions.
• Establish engineering best practices for reliability, scalability, observability, security, and maintainability.
• Drive quality engineering practices including automated testing, performance testing, load testing, and production readiness reviews.
• Lead troubleshooting and resolution of complex production issues.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, operational runbooks, and engineering standards.
• Drive end-to-end software ownership from design through deployment, monitoring, support, and continuous improvement.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Extensive experience with Java 17+ and Spring Boot for RESTful API development.
• Experience with API gateways and management platforms, specifically Apigee (or similar).
• Proficiency deploying and maintaining software in public cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP); AWS preferred.
• Proven ability to write comprehensive automated tests (unit, integration, end-to-end) using frameworks like JUnit and Mockito.
• Experience designing and implementing Event-Driven Architectures using message streaming solutions (e.g., AWS Kinesis, SQS, SNS, Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Event Hub).
• Deep understanding of multiple datastore types:
  • Relational: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, AWS RDS/Aurora
  • NoSQL: MongoDB, Cassandra, AWS DynamoDB
  • Search: Elasticsearch
  • Caching: Redis
  • Vector databases
• Hands-on experience configuring and deploying software via CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or GoCD).
• Demonstrated success working within an Agile/Scrum framework.
• Knowledge of secure service-to-service integrations using OAuth 2.0, JWT, and entitlement-based authorization models.
• Strong decision-making, critical thinking, and technical leadership abilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with AI-assisted coding companions (GitHub Copilot, Cursor).

Skills

• API
• AWS
• Azure
• Elastic Search
• Java
• JUnit
• MySQL
• Spring Boot
• SQL

Pay

Hourly rate: $80.00 – $90.00.

Schedule

• Monday to Friday, 1st shift.
• Hybrid work model: 2 days in office (Monday and Wednesday).