Lead Software Engineer

A client with Kforce in Newport Beach, CA is seeking a a hands-on Lead Software Engineer to help modernize capabilities surrounding our legacy annuity policy administration platforms, including the design, development, testing, and deployment of AWS-based solutions and the orchestration layer that processes business events, applies routing and transformation rules, coordinates downstream activities, and manages exceptions. This role requires a strong combination of software engineering, AWS data platform development, Integration architecture, DevOps automation, and Technical leadership. The successful candidate will establish development standards, guide other engineers, conduct code and design reviews, and translate architectural direction into production-ready solutions. Duties:

• Lead the design and development of an AWS-based operational data layer containing replicated data from mainframe policy administration systems
• Build ingestion and processing components supporting cross-platform data ingestion and integration, batch integration, and event-driven data movement
• Develop data transformation, mapping, validation, reconciliation, and exception-handling capabilities
• Implement solutions using appropriate AWS services such as Amazon S3, Aurora or RDS, DynamoDB, AWS Glue, Lambda, and managed messaging services
• Establish controls for data completeness, consistency, lineage, security, retention, and auditability
• Implement monitoring for data latency, throughput, data-quality exceptions, failed transactions, and platform availability
• Partner with mainframe, data engineering, and integration teams to resolve source-data and data movement issues
• AWS Developer, Solutions Architect, DevOps Engineer, or Data Engineer certification
• Experience integrating AWS applications with mainframe platforms
• Familiarity with COBOL, DB2 for z/OS, VSAM, CICS, batch processing, or mainframe data structures
• Experience with cross-platform data integration tools and technologies
• Experience with Amazon EventBridge, SQS, SNS, MSK or Kafka, Step Functions, ECS, EKS, or Lambda
• Experience building high-volume, highly available, and auditable financial-services platforms
• Familiarity with insurance, annuity, policy administration, or regulated financial-services environments
• Experience with Snowflake or enterprise analytical data platforms while maintaining separation between operational and analytical workloads
• Experience with legacy-system modernization patterns, including strangler architecture, parallel processing, reconciliation, and phased migration
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools for code analysis, development, testing, or technical documentation

• Leads through technical credibility and hands-on contribution
• Coaches engineers while holding the team accountable for engineering quality
• Makes pragmatic decisions within established enterprise architecture and security standards
• Communicates clearly across application, data, infrastructure, security, architecture, and business teams
• Balances near-term delivery needs with long-term maintainability and reuse
• Works effectively in an environment involving legacy platforms, cloud services, vendor partners, and multiple dependent teams