Lead Software Engineer

Title: Lead Java Engineer-W2
Duration: 6 months/contract
Location: Phoenix AZ(Hybrid)
Final Onsite Interview

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Instructions: The client is looking for 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with 2+ years in a lead capacity.  Candidates should have a feep understanding of Java and strong hand-on experience with Spring and Hibernate/JPA.  Candidates should also have SQL and AWS experience in production.

 Strong Java development background

• AWS Cloud experience (required)
• Experience with:
• EC2
• AWS Lambda (Java-based Lambdas)
• API development and maintenance
• Some front-end development experience (building pages/UI)
• Database knowledge
• Oracle experience preferred
• Java architecture and backend development depth.
• Hands-on AWS experience (EC2, Lambda, cloud-native applications).

About the role

We are hiring a Lead Software Engineer to own technical direction for a large multi-module Java enterprise platform with a modern React UI, batch processing, partner integrations, and AWS-hosted containerized deployments.

You will lead design and delivery across a mature codebase while modernizing architecture, cloud operations, and developer experience. Experience building AI agents / LLM-powered workflows is a strong plus.

What you’ll do

• Lead end-to-end delivery of features across backend services, APIs, UI, and integrations
• Architect and review solutions in a large Maven multi-module Java/Spring application
• Guide evolution of the platform: legacy server-rendered UI alongside modern React, APIs, and batch jobs
• Own or partner on AWS deployment and reliability for containerized Tomcat services (ECS, CDK pipelines, secrets, observability)
• Mentor engineers, set coding standards, drive design reviews, and improve CI/CD and release quality
• Partner with product and stakeholders on external integrations.
• Diagnose production issues across application, database, and infrastructure layers; strengthen monitoring and runbooks
• Optionally lead or contribute to AI-agent initiatives that automate workflows, data handling, or developer productivity

Required qualifications

• 8+ years professional software engineering experience; 2+ years in a lead / staff / tech-lead capacity
• Deep expertise in Java (Java 8+; comfort with large enterprise codebases)
• Strong hands-on experience with Spring (MVC, Security, Batch, SOAP/REST), Hibernate/JPA, and relational data modeling
• Solid SQL / MySQL skills: schema design, query tuning, transactional integrity
• Experience with Maven, multi-module builds, and Tomcat (or similar Java app servers)
• Proven AWS experience in production: ideally ECS/Fargate, ECR, ALB, Secrets Manager / SSM, S3, CloudWatch, and IaC (CDK, CloudFormation, or Terraform)
• Experience modernizing or maintaining legacy enterprise systems while delivering incremental improvements safely
• Strong design, debugging, and communication skills; ability to lead without blocking the team

Preferred qualifications

• React (or similar SPA) experience — Vite, Redux/RTK, Material UI a plus
• Observability: Datadog, structured logging, APM, on-call practices
• Docker, CI/CD (Jenkins, CodePipeline/CodeBuild), artifact registries (CodeArtifact/Nexus)
• AI agent building experience (plus): Tool-calling agents, MCP, or workflow automation agents applied to enterprise systems