Java Lead Software Engineer

Java Lead Software Engineer

Our client is consistently recognized as a best place to work by several independent programs. They recognize and reward people and results with a comprehensive Total Rewards package. This means competitive compensation that reflects your unique contributions—performance, experience, and skills—along with exceptional benefits, including best-in-class health coverage, retirement plans with generous company contributions, and a commitment to your overall well-being.

Join them in transforming how people everywhere access information and be part of a mission-driven team that makes a global impact.

The job details are as follows:

They are looking for a Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and hands-on development across large-scale, distributed systems that support products used by libraries worldwide. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who enjoys designing robust software systems, mentoring others, and influencing technical direction while still writing high-quality code.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Lead the design and delivery of medium to large-scale software initiatives from concept through production.
• Architect scalable, resilient systems using modern Java-based frameworks, cloud infrastructure, and distributed system patterns.
• Establish and champion engineering best practices, including code quality, testing, observability, and documentation.
• Guide teams through complex technical decisions, system design, and implementation trade-offs.

Mentorship & Engineering Excellence

• Mentor small groups of engineers across teams and levels, acting as a trusted technical leader and sounding board.
• Foster an inclusive, high-trust environment where engineers feel safe to share ideas, experiment, and learn.
• Provide actionable feedback through code reviews, design discussions, and one-on-one mentorship.
• Model strong communication skills and collaborative problem-solving across the organization.

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Strategic & Cross-Functional Impact

• Partner with product and business stakeholders to translate customer needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends to inform architectural and platform decisions.
• Clearly communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Drive cross-team initiatives that improve system reliability, developer productivity, and platform capabilities.

Hands-On Development

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services using Java, Spring Boot, and microservices architectures.
• Build and integrate distributed systems leveraging technologies such as Kafka, Spark, and cloud-native services.
• Write clean, testable code and ensure quality through unit, integration, and performance testing.
• Participate in code reviews, incident response, and continuous improvement of engineering processes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 7+ years of professional software development experience, including 5+ years working with Java.
• Demonstrates strong initiative and ownership, driving tasks to completion with minimal supervision.
• Experience in executing work independently while aligning with broader teaming organizational goals.
• Strong expertise in:
• Java and object-oriented design (design patterns, UML)
• Distributed systems and service-oriented architectures
• Spring IoC, Spring Boot, Maven
• RESTful and SOAP-based web services

• Experience working with data-intensive or event-driven systems ideal (e.g., Kafka, Spark, Hadoop).
• Worked with AI tools or frameworks used to enhance software development or system capabilities a plus.
• Experience building and operating cloud-based applications (AWS preferred; Snowflake a plus).
• Proficiency with Linux/UNIX environments and CI/CD pipelines.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Nice to Have

• Experience designing and operating microservices at scale.