Senior Backend Java and AWS Engineer

About the role

Job Title: Senior Backend Java and AWS Engineer Location: Chicago, IL 60603 (Onsite) Duration: 13 months contract Must Have Skills/Attributes: · AWS · Java · Spring Boot · SQL Experience Desired: · Advanced Java and/or Kotlin in production environments (10 yrs) · Strong AWS expertise (10 yrs) · Spring Boot building microservices and REST APIs (10 yrs) · Microservices architecture and distributed systems patterns (10 yrs) · RESTful API design and implementation with documentation (10 yrs) · SQL and relational databases (10 yrs) · NoSQL non-relational data stores (10 yrs) Required Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree Job Description: Required Skills: · Strong AWS expertise – designing and operating cloud-native, highly available distributed systems. · Advanced Java and/or Kotlin in production environments. · Spring Boot – building microservices and REST APIs (Spring Web/MVC, dependency injection, configuration, actuator/health checks). · Microservices architecture and distributed systems patterns (service boundaries, resiliency, fault tolerance). · RESTful API design and implementation with documentation (OpenAPI/Swagger). · SQL and relational databases – data modeling, query tuning, performance optimization. · NoSQL / non-relational data stores (e.g., DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra). · CI/CD pipelines and build/deploy automation (quality gates, repeatable releases). · Data streaming / asynchronous messaging – event-driven patterns (e.g., Kafka). · Observability – logging, metrics, tracing, and production troubleshooting / incident investigation. Soft Skills (Must-Have): · Strong technical communication skills – able to clearly explain complex designs and trade-offs to engineers, product owners, and managers. · Collaborative mindset – ability to work effectively across teams on shared architectures and dependencies. · Technical leadership and ownership – driving decisions and follow-through on complex engineering problems. · Strong problem-solving and analytical thinking – especially in debugging, production support, and performance issues. · Ability to balance technical depth with delivery – making pragmatic decisions aligned with business priorities. · Comfortable participating in Agile ceremonies (stand-ups, sprint planning, retrospectives) while remaining primarily hands-on. Job Requirements: · Provide deep technical leadership for the design and implementation of Java-based, cloud-native systems on AWS. · Define service architecture, data flows, and integration patterns to meet strict scalability, availability, and security requirements. · Drive architectural decisions across microservices, event-driven, and asynchronous processing patterns. · Ensure clear service ownership and well-defined contracts between services. · Define standards for infrastructure-as-code, resiliency, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation. · Proactively identify architectural bottlenecks, scalability constraints, and technical debt. · Lead development of core backend services using modern Java frameworks and AWS-native patterns. · Design and implement RESTful and event-based APIs. · Build message-driven processing and distributed data management solutions. · Guide adoption of AWS services including managed compute, messaging, storage, and databases. · Investigate and resolve defects, performance issues, and production incidents. · Implement fixes and improvements to ensure system stability and reliability. · Support reliable operation of distributed systems in production through observability, logging, metrics, and tracing. · Review pull requests and lead technical design discussions. · Define architecture and implementation standards for the team. · Establish technical best practices for CI/CD automation, observability, and production troubleshooting. · Work closely with the engineering team to guide design and implementation of Java-based services on AWS. · Collaborate with other engineering teams to align on APIs, integrations, and shared cloud architecture. · Partner with Product Owners and engineering managers to translate requirements into technical solutions. · Align execution with delivery priorities. · Participate in architecture reviews and integration discussions. · Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, stand-ups, and retrospectives. · Attend necessary technical and operational calls.