Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer (Java & UI)

Responsibilities Role Overview: We're looking for a hands-on Lead Software Engineer (Java & UI) to design and deliver end-to-end platforms with Java as primary and modern UI as secondary. Focus areas include technical delivery, mentorship, quality, performance, and effective stakeholder communication.

Key Responsibilities:

• Full-Stack Architecture: Define clean boundaries between Java microservices (API-first) and React/TypeScript/Next.js front-ends, standardize API contracts and BFF patterns (Java-first).
• Build & Delivery: Implement domain services and REST APIs in Java, contribute to critical UI workflows and component libraries when needed.
• Quality & Testing: Apply test pyramids across tiers—JUnit/Mockito/Testcontainers (BE), Jest/RTL/Playwright (FE), enforce API/UI contract tests.
• Performance & Security: JVM/DB tuning, caching, resilience, optimize Core Web Vitals and SSR/SSG/ISR, apply OAuth2/JWT, CSP.
• Observability: Logs/metrics/traces across BE & FE and error tracking, dashboards and alerting for release health.
• Mentorship & Collaboration: Mentor engineers, promote reuse (shared libs/components), communicate risks/trade-offs and align on scope with Product/UX/Architecture. Facilitate agile ceremonies: (stand-ups, backlog refinement, sprint planning, demos, retros) with a focus on technical outcomes, risk surfacing, and sprint goal clarity.
• Refine stories into actionable technical tasks: ensure Definition of Ready/Done, unambiguous acceptance criteria, testability, and accurate story point estimation.

Qualifications:

Must-Have Skills:

• Java (Primary) Java / Java 8+: OOP & SOLID, Streams, Optional, functional interfaces, lambda expressions. Concurrency: Thread pools, Future/CompletableFuture, synchronization, locks, concurrent collections, Java Memory Model, heap/stack, GC.
• Web & API: RESTful design, rate limiting, API gateway concepts, Swagger/OpenAPI documentation, WebLogic/WebSphere familiarity (or embedded servers).
• Spring: Spring Core (IoC/DI), Spring MVC, Spring Boot, Spring Security (JWT/OAuth2), Spring Batch, Spring AOP.
• Architecture & Patterns: Event-driven design (MQ/queuing), patterns—Factory, Builder, Strategy, Template.
• Data/Testing/Tooling: SQL & query tuning, Redis, JUnit/Mockito/Testcontainers, Maven/Gradle, Git, CI/CD, OpenTelemetry.
• UI (Secondary – 20–30%) React + TypeScript + Next.js: Component-driven development, hooks, state (Redux/RTK/Zustand), SSR/SSG/ISR, routing, image optimization. Performance & Accessibility: Core Web Vitals, code splitting, caching/CDN, WCAG 2.1 accessibility practices. Security & Testing: CSP, sanitization, XSS/CSRF protections, Jest, RTL, Playwright/Cypress. Integration: Robust consumption of Java APIs, auth flows (OAuth/OIDC, JWT), error handling and retry UX.

Good to Have:

• Design systems (Storybook, tokens/theming), monorepos (Nx/Turborepo).
• Messaging/eventing (Kafka), BFF-in-Java standards, API versioning strategies.
• Containers (Docker) and orchestration basics (Kubernetes/ECS).

Soft Skills: Strong problem-solving, analytical thinking, and bias for action. Plans, prioritizes, and communicates effectively across teams and time zones. Mentors teammates, provides clear, constructive feedback. Demonstrates ownership, raises the bar, and consistently exceeds day-to-day expectations. Identifies ambiguity/risks and proactively drives clarity and resolution with stakeholders.