Location: Whippany
Employment Type: Full-Time (FTE Only)
Salary: $125K
Purpose of the Role
We are seeking a highly skilled Lead Engineer to lead the design and development of scalable backend systems while guiding engineering teams in building secure, high-performance, and production-ready applications.
This role combines hands‑on backend development, architectural leadership, technical mentoring, and cross-functional collaboration to deliver enterprise-grade distributed systems and real-time streaming solutions.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the design and development of backend systems using Java and Spring Boot
- Design and implement scalable, secure, and high-performance REST APIs and microservices
- Drive architectural decisions for distributed and event-driven systems
- Guide engineering teams in developing modular, maintainable, and production-ready solutions
- Conduct code reviews and enforce coding standards and engineering best practices
- Mentor and support developers through technical guidance and leadership
- Collaborate with product managers, frontend engineers, DevOps, and other stakeholders
- Participate in technical design discussions and solution architecture planning
- Ensure application scalability, reliability, resiliency, and performance optimization
- Support deployment activities, debugging, and production issue resolution
- Promote clean coding standards, automation, and quality-first development practices
- Continuously evaluate emerging technologies and recommend engineering improvements
Basic / Essential Qualifications
- Strong hands‑on experience in Java backend development for scalable enterprise applications
- Expertise in building REST APIs and microservices using Spring Boot
- Strong understanding of:
- Object‑Oriented Programming (OOP)
- Design patterns
- Secure application development
- Distributed systems architecture
Databases & Messaging
- Experience working with:
- Relational databases
- NoSQL databases
- Messaging platforms such as:
- Apache Kafka
- RabbitMQ
- Exposure to cloud platforms including:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud (GCP)
- Proven ability to lead small to mid‑sized engineering teams
- Experience conducting:
- Code reviews
- Technical design sessions
- Architecture discussions
- Engineering mentorship
- Strong analytical, communication, and problem‑solving skills
Streaming & Real‑Time Processing
- Strong hands‑on experience with:
- Kafka Streams
- Apache Flink
- Event‑driven architecture
Distributed Systems Expertise
- Strong understanding of:
- Partitioning strategies
- Consumer group design
- Parallel processing
- Fault tolerance
- Backpressure handling
- Resiliency patterns
- Proven track record of delivering production‑grade, maintainable code
- Experience with:
- Automated testing frameworks
- Test‑driven development (TDD)
- CI/CD best practices
- Ability to make pragmatic architecture and design trade‑offs balancing:
- Scalability
- Performance
- Maintainability
- Reliability
Performance Optimization
- Experience in:
- Capacity planning
- System tuning
- High‑throughput application optimization
- Production performance monitoring
Experience Required
- 7–10 years of backend engineering experience
- Prior experience in technical leadership or team lead responsibilities preferred