Job Summary
We are seeking an experienced Java Tech Lead to drive the design and delivery of cloud-native backend services on AWS. This player-coach role combines hands-on software development with technical and people leadership. The Java Tech Lead will establish technical direction, contribute code to critical development paths, manage a team of engineers, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver scalable, secure, and reliable solutions.
Key Responsibilities
• Own the architecture and technical roadmap for the team's Java services on AWS.
• Design and build scalable, secure, and resilient microservices and APIs using Java and Spring Boot.
• Write production code for critical functionality, lead design and code reviews, and establish standards for code quality and testing.
• Make AWS architecture decisions across compute, data, messaging, and networking while balancing reliability, security, and cost.
• Drive CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability using tools such as New Relic, on-call practices, and incident reviews.
• Manage engineers directly through regular one-on-one meetings, goal setting, performance reviews, and career development.
• Coach engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and stretch assignments, and help develop future technical leaders.
• Address performance issues proactively through clear expectations and direct, fair feedback.
• Partner with product, architecture, security, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into a prioritized backlog.
• Collaborate with QA, DevOps, platform, and other engineering teams to align priorities, dependencies, and integrations.
• Manage Agile/Scrum delivery activities, including sprint planning, estimation, dependency management, and releases.
• Communicate project status, risks, and technical trade-offs clearly to engineering leadership.
Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 7+ years building backend systems in Java.
• 2+ years of experience managing engineers as direct reports, including performance reviews and career development.
• Deep expertise in modern Java (17+) and Spring Boot, including REST API design, Spring Data, and Spring Security.
• 3+ years of experience designing, building, and operating production systems on AWS, including services such as ECS/EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, DynamoDB, S3, SQS/SNS, CloudWatch, and IAM.
• Strong knowledge of microservices and distributed systems design, including event-driven architecture, messaging, caching, and resiliency patterns.
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, such as PostgreSQL, Oracle, and DynamoDB, including data modeling and performance tuning.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI; container technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes/ECS; and automated testing frameworks such as JUnit and Mockito.
• Proven track record of delivering complex, production-grade projects end to end in an Agile environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical trade-offs to engineering teams and business stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience in retail, e-commerce, or payments environments with high transaction volumes.
• Experience modernizing monolithic applications or leading migrations to AWS.
• Experience with infrastructure as code using Terraform, AWS CDK, or CloudFormation.
• Experience with event-streaming technologies such as Kafka, Amazon MSK, or Kinesis.
• Familiarity with observability tools such as New Relic, Datadog, Splunk, Grafana/Prometheus, or OpenTelemetry.
Certifications
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate or Professional.
• AWS Certified Developer - Associate.
