Lead Java Developer / Architect - Fulltime - Onsite in Irvine, CA

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Architect to lead the design and implementation of enterprise-scale, cloud-native platforms and distributed systems. This role will drive architecture strategy, technology decisions, modernization initiatives, and engineering best practices across the organization. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in modern Java, microservices, event-driven architectures, AWS cloud technologies, and technical leadership.

<>Responsibilities

• Define and govern enterprise architecture standards, principles, and best practices.
• Design scalable, resilient, and secure cloud-native solutions using modern architectural patterns.
• Lead architecture reviews, technology evaluations, and technical decision-making.
• Architect microservices, event-driven systems, APIs, and enterprise integration solutions.
• Drive adoption of AWS cloud services, hybrid-cloud architectures, and platform modernization initiatives.
• Establish standards for observability, reliability, security, and performance engineering.
• Guide implementation of Kafka-based streaming and real-time data processing solutions.
• Mentor architects, technical leads, and engineering teams.
• Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to align architecture with strategic objectives.
• Promote engineering excellence through DevOps, automation, and AI-enabled solution design.

<>Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 15+ years of overall IT experience, including 10+ years in enterprise application development.
• 3+ years of experience in Architect or Lead Architect roles.
• Deep expertise in Java 17/21/25, Spring Boot, Spring Framework, REST APIs, and gRPC.
• Strong experience designing microservices, distributed systems, and Domain-Driven Design (DDD) architectures.
• Proven expertise in Apache Kafka, event-driven architecture, and real-time streaming solutions.
• 5+ years of experience with AWS cloud services, including EKS, ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, and MSK.
• Strong knowledge of PostgreSQL, Oracle, NoSQL databases, Redis, and data architecture best practices.
• Experience with enterprise integrations, B2B APIs, Webhooks, and asynchronous communication patterns.
• Expertise in security frameworks including OAuth2, OpenID Connect, and API security.
• Experience implementing observability and reliability practices using ELK/OpenSearch, Prometheus, Grafana, and distributed tracing tools.
• Familiarity with AI integration, including RAG, Vector Databases, LLMs, and LangChain/LangChain4j.
• Experience with CI/CD, Terraform, Docker, and modern deployment strategies.
• Strong leadership, stakeholder management, and mentoring skills.

Preferred: Experience with hybrid cloud architectures, service mesh technologies (Istio/Linkerd), Zero Trust security, and SRE practices.