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IT Software Engineer 5 - Lead Cloud/Java Engineer - 111953-1
Posted: 09/01/2026
Job Number: 2347
Pay Rate: 104
Work Location: Hybrid
: IT
Job Description
Cullerton Group has a new opportunity for an IT Software Engineer 5 – Lead Cloud/Java Engineer. The Chicago, IL office is preferred, but the position can be 100% remote, with travel as needed. Candidates located in the Central or Eastern time zones are preferred. This is a 12-month position that can lead to permanent employment with our client. Compensation is $104/hr + full benefits (vision, dental, health insurance, 401k, and holiday pay).
Job Summary
We are seeking an experienced Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and delivery ownership for a team developing and operating scalable, cloud-native applications on AWS. This position will drive architecture, solution design, and engineering best practices across Java/Spring Boot microservices, OpenSearch platforms, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and AWS infrastructure. The engineer will partner closely with product, architecture, and platform teams while mentoring developers and ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, reliable, and high performing. This is an excellent opportunity for a senior engineer who combines deep hands-on technical expertise with strong leadership and delivery ownership.
Key Responsibilities
This position offers the opportunity to take technical ownership of sophisticated, business-critical cloud applications while helping shape architecture and engineering practices across a highly collaborative organization. You will work with modern technologies including Java, Spring Boot, AWS, OpenSearch, distributed systems, DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, and AI-assisted development tools. The role provides significant technical influence, leadership responsibility, and the opportunity to mentor engineers while delivering scalable solutions for a global organization.
Job Summary
We are seeking an experienced Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and delivery ownership for a team developing and operating scalable, cloud-native applications on AWS. This position will drive architecture, solution design, and engineering best practices across Java/Spring Boot microservices, OpenSearch platforms, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and AWS infrastructure. The engineer will partner closely with product, architecture, and platform teams while mentoring developers and ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, reliable, and high performing. This is an excellent opportunity for a senior engineer who combines deep hands-on technical expertise with strong leadership and delivery ownership.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead software engineers in the design, development, and delivery of business-critical cloud-native applications.
- Establish technical direction, architectural standards, and engineering best practices across Java/Spring Boot microservices and distributed systems.
- Drive AWS cloud adoption, modernization, infrastructure automation, and scalable cloud architecture initiatives.
- Ensure applications meet requirements for scalability, performance, security, reliability, and observability.
- Promote DevOps, CI/CD, automation, Infrastructure as Code, and AI-assisted software development practices.
- Support production incident resolution, operational excellence, performance optimization, and continuous improvement.
- Mentor and coach engineers while helping develop technical talent across the organization.
- Partner with Product Owners, Architects, platform teams, and other stakeholders to align technical solutions with business objectives.
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- 10+ years of relevant software engineering experience, including 5+ years in a technical lead or engineering leadership capacity.
- Strong hands-on expertise with Java and Spring Boot.
- Strong experience designing and developing microservices and REST APIs.
- Advanced experience with AWS, particularly services such as ECS/Fargate, IAM, ALB, RDS, CloudWatch, and Secrets Manager.
- Experience with OpenSearch and/or Elasticsearch.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, cloud architecture, event-driven architecture, and API integration.
- Experience with Docker, CI/CD, GitHub, DevOps, and Infrastructure as Code.
- Experience working with SQL and NoSQL databases.
- Experience with application observability, performance optimization, scalability, and reliability.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted software development tools and practices.
- Strong technical leadership, communication, stakeholder-management, mentoring, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
- Experience working with the latest versions of Java and modern Spring Boot architectures.
- Experience leading complex AWS modernization or cloud-transformation initiatives.
- Strong background designing highly scalable and resilient enterprise cloud applications.
- Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional engineering teams and establish architectural and development standards.
- Experience coaching and mentoring software engineers while remaining technically hands-on.
This position offers the opportunity to take technical ownership of sophisticated, business-critical cloud applications while helping shape architecture and engineering practices across a highly collaborative organization. You will work with modern technologies including Java, Spring Boot, AWS, OpenSearch, distributed systems, DevOps, Infrastructure as Code, and AI-assisted development tools. The role provides significant technical influence, leadership responsibility, and the opportunity to mentor engineers while delivering scalable solutions for a global organization.
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