Sr Java Engineer

12 Month Contract w/ possibility for extension
Hybrid: 3 days per week on-site in Chicago or Peoria.
POSITION SUMMARY

We are seeking an experienced Senior Software Engineer to join our Agile development team. The ideal candidate is a highly skilled technologist capable of independently leading complex software development efforts, mentoring team members, and delivering high-quality solutions across the full software development lifecycle. This role requires deep expertise in Java-based application development, cloud technologies, and modern architectural patterns.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Software Development & Engineering

• Design, develop, code, test, and debug complex programs and system modules with minimal supervision.
• Develop major system modules, programs, or infrastructure components based on requirements gathered from stakeholders.
• Configure and customize purchased software solutions of high complexity.
• Perform integration tasks for in-house developed systems and/or purchased hardware and software solutions.
• Demonstrate solid knowledge of computer science fundamentals, including data structures and algorithms.

Technical Leadership & Collaboration

• Provide technical leadership, guidance, and mentorship to other team members in areas of project management, programming, systems analysis, and system administration.
• Lead complex application and technical problem identification and resolution, including responding to off-hours and weekend support escalations.
• Work independently on complex processes and modules used across one or more programs, systems, or infrastructure components.

Quality Assurance & Testing

• Perform integrated testing and customer acceptance testing of system components, ensuring careful planning and execution to deliver timely, high-quality results.
• Maintain comprehensive knowledge of programming languages, program design, specification development, logic diagrams, testing and debugging standards, file design, and storage systems.
• Assist customers with documentation, training, and usability efforts.

Agile & Team Participation

• Actively participate as a member of an Agile Scrum team, engaging in all ceremonies including Daily Standups, Sprint Planning, Backlog Grooming, Retrospectives, and Sprint Demos.
• Conduct and participate in pull request (PR) reviews to maintain code quality standards.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with other teams and stakeholders as needed.

WORK ENVIRONMENT

This role operates within a highly collaborative Agile team environment. Strong interpersonal skills and a team-first mindset are essential. The candidate must be comfortable engaging across all levels of the organization, including developers, architects, product owners, and business stakeholders.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field plus 8+ years of relevant professional experience; OR
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field plus 6+ years of relevant professional experience.

TECHNICAL SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS

Required Experience

• 8+ years of software development experience (or 6+ years with a Master's degree in a related field).
• 8+ years of experience designing and developing software applications in Java (or 6+ years with a Master's degree). MUST have experience w/ Java 21
• Minimum 3 years of hands-on AWS development experience, including:
• CloudFormation templates
• ECS clusters, Lambda, and Fargate
• Amazon OpenSearch (Elasticsearch), S3
• Strong understanding of IAM roles and policies

Core Competencies

• Demonstrated experience designing, developing, deploying, and maintaining software at scale.
• 3+ years building and developing with Cloud Technologies (AWS).
• Proficiency developing software applications using relational and NoSQL databases.
• Strong familiarity with application architectural patterns such as MVC, Microservices, and Event-Driven Architecture.
• Experience deploying software via CI/CD tools such as Jenkins or Azure DevOps.
• Hands-on experience deploying and maintaining software on public cloud platforms (AWS or Azure).
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively within an Agile framework, ideally Scrum.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with batch or stream processing systems such as AWS SQS, SNS, or Kinesis.
• Experience designing well-defined RESTful APIs.
• Hands-on experience with API tooling such as Swagger, Postman, and Assertible.
• Familiarity with Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) methodologies.
• Experience with testing frameworks such as Selenium and Cucumber and their integration into CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with datastores including DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Elasticsearch, MySQL, and/or Oracle.