Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer

Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc., (SGA), is searching for a Lead Software Engineer for a contract assignment with one of our premier regulatory clients in the DMV area. Seeking an engineering team lead to guide the team building and operating the enterprise-scale identity and access-management platform. This is a hands-on leadership role requiring code development across the stack while also leading the engineering team, owning the technical architecture, and serving as the primary technical authority for the platform. The platform spans Java/Spring Boot microservices, an Angular micro-frontend suite, AWS-native infrastructure, workflow/BPM automation, and a substantial testing and reporting ecosystem, all within a regulated financial-industry environment. You will balance approximately 50–60% hands-on engineering and architecture with 40–50% team leadership, planning, and stakeholder engagement.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end technical architecture of the identity platform across backend microservices, micro-frontends, data, and cloud infrastructure.
• Define and evolve architectural standards, patterns, and best practices; document key decisions (ADRs) and drive alignment across the team.
• Lead design reviews and make final calls on significant technical trade-offs (e.g., service boundaries, reactive vs. blocking, data modeling, caching, resiliency).
• Set and enforce non-functional standards: security, performance, scalability, availability, observability, and accessibility (WCAG).
• Own the technical roadmap, including framework upgrades and migrations (e.g., Angular 16→21, Spring Boot 2.x→4.x, Java 11→17+) and technical-debt reduction.
• Partner with security, compliance, and audit stakeholders to ensure the platform meets regulatory requirements.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of software engineers; provide technical direction, coaching, and career development.
• Conduct and elevate code reviews; establish a strong engineering culture around quality, testing, and craftsmanship.
• Plan and coordinate team delivery: break down epics, estimate, sequence work, and manage the team's technical backlog.
• Remove blockers, balance workload, and shield the team from unnecessary disruption while keeping delivery on track.
• Foster collaboration across teams.
• Design, develop, and maintain Java/Spring Boot microservices (access management, KBA/MFA, org, concierge/workflow, auditing, scheduling, search).
• Build and enhance Angular micro-frontend applications within the shared component library and micro-app architecture.
• Develop and consume RESTful and reactive (WebFlux) APIs and integrations across services.
• Implement identity and security features: authentication, authorization, entitlements, KBA, MFA (DUO), LDAP, and on-behalf-of flows.
• Work with AWS services (ECS/Fargate, RDS Aurora, SQS, SES, S3, Lambda, Elasticsearch, Parameter Store) and infrastructure-as-code provisioning.
• Contribute to and steward CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins) and code-quality gates (SonarQube, JaCoCo).
• Design and maintain database schemas and migrations (PostgreSQL/Aurora, Liquibase, Hibernate/JPA).
• Tackle the most complex or high-risk implementation work and production issues.
• Own release planning and coordination across the multi-repo platform and its many deployable components.
• Champion observability, incident response, and operational readiness; participate in on-call/escalation as needed.
• Drive continuous improvement of engineering processes, tooling, and delivery velocity.

Required Skills: Engineering Depth

• 12+ years of professional software development experience, with senior-level ownership of complex systems.
• Expert-level Java (11, 17, 21) and Spring Boot (WebFlux, Security, Data JPA/Hibernate, Cache, Retry); multi-module Maven.
• Strong Angular and TypeScript experience (Angular 16+), including RxJS, NgRx, and component/micro-frontend architecture.
• Solid experience designing microservices and REST/reactive APIs.
• Hands-on AWS experience running containerized services in production (ECS/Fargate, ALB, RDS/Aurora, SQS/SES, Lambda, S3).
• Proficiency with PostgreSQL, SQL, ORM (Hibernate/JPA), and Liquibase migrations.
• Experience with CI/CD (GitLab CI and/or Jenkins), Docker, SonarQube/JaCoCo, and Git-based workflows.
• Working knowledge of Groovy for infrastructure provisioning and build orchestration.
• Experience leveraging AI technologies and AI powered development tools such as AWS Kiro, MCP servers, and AI skills is highly preferred.

Architecture & Leadership

• 3+ years in a technical leadership, lead engineer, or team lead capacity.
• Demonstrated ownership of system-level architecture for a non-trivial platform, including documented decisions and trade-off analysis.
• Proven experience leading and mentoring engineers, running code reviews, and raising a team's technical bar.
• Track record of planning and delivering multi-component releases and coordinating across teams.
• Experience leading framework upgrades/migrations and technical-debt initiatives.
• Excellent communication skills—able to explain complex technical concepts to engineers and non-technical stakeholders alike.

Leadership Competencies

• Technical vision — sets and communicates a clear architectural direction aligned with business goals.
• Decisiveness — makes sound, timely technical decisions and owns the outcomes.
• People development — mentors and grows engineers; builds a high-trust, high-accountability culture.
• Delivery orientation — balances quality, speed, and risk to ship reliably.
• Influence & communication — aligns engineers, product, security, and leadership around a shared plan.
• Pragmatism — balances ideal design against delivery realities and technical debt.

Preferred Skills:

• Deep domain experience in identity and access management (IAM): authN/authZ, entitlements, MFA, LDAP.
• Experience with PingOne Identity Platform
• Experience with BPM/workflow engines (Activiti or similar BPMN engines).
• Experience designing and operating micro-frontend architectures at scale.
• Elasticsearch for search-driven features.
• Performance engineering with Gatling (and Scala familiarity).
• E2E testing strategy with Playwright and/or Protractor.
• Feature-flag / progressive-delivery platforms (LaunchDarkly).
• Reporting/analytics with Power BI (DAX) and SSRS.
• Experience in regulated / financial-services environments with strong security and audit requirements.
• GraphQL / Apollo experience.
• Formal architecture certifications or equivalent demonstrable experience (e.g., AWS Solutions Architect).