Lead Full Stack Java Developer : Kroger

Senior Lead Full Stack Developer

This is a true "LEAD" position. Only submit candidates with true lead experience. Years of Experience: 8-15+ YOE

Top 3 Must Have Skills:

• Java + Spring Boot backend leadership: Design, build, and evolve resilient REST APIs and services in production.
• React front-end leadership: Build and maintain a high-quality, maintainable React web application codebase.
• Tech lead quality multiplier: Drive engineering standards via CI/CD and mentor developers through reviews and coaching.

Tech Stack:

• React, TypeScript/JavaScript
• Java, Spring Boot (REST APIs)
• Microsoft Azure
• SQL, NoSQL

What You'll Do

Team Summary

The End-to-End Fresh team delivers technology solutions that improve the freshness of fresh foods from farm to customer, supporting produce today and potentially expanding into other fresh categories over time.

Position Summary

We are seeking a Senior Lead Full Stack Developer to provide hands-on technical leadership for a modern, web-based platform that serves as the enterprise repository and system of record for fresh quality specifications. This platform enables business users to maintain specifications centrally and ensures those standards are consistently available across the enterprise (replacing manual, paper-based approaches).

In this role, you will lead both backend services development (Java/Spring) and front-end development (React). The services you build will support two primary consumers:

• An Android-based inspection application used by inspectors in the field, where specification data informs the inspection workflow.
• The web application front end used to view and manage specifications.

You will own technical design discussions, raise engineering standards, mentor developers, and deliver high-quality features across the full stack. You will partner closely with product leadership and architecture stakeholders to plan and execute work that balances delivery with security, reliability, scalability, and long-term maintainability.

Minimum Position Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software development experience with significant hands-on coding responsibility, including Java.
• 7+ years of experience developing RESTful APIs.
• 5+ years of experience designing, building, releasing, and evolving APIs in production environments.
• 5+ years of experience building modern web applications with React.
• Significant experience with the Spring ecosystem (e.g., Spring Boot; REST; persistence; integrations/messaging), including core Spring patterns (dependency injection, AOP) and security fundamentals.
• Strong knowledge of SQL; experience working with both SQL and NoSQL data stores.
• 4+ years of experience with CI/CD and integrating automated testing (unit and integration).
• Proficient understanding of Git and Git-based workflows (e.g., GitHub SaaS).
• Experience building services on a cloud platform such as Microsoft Azure (preferred) or equivalent.
• Experience with Docker (or similar container technologies).
• Ability to understand business requirements and translate them into technical solutions; strong communication and collaboration skills in an agile team environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong, recent Azure experience (architecture, deployment, monitoring/operability patterns).
• Experience modernizing or improving reliability/operability of an existing production application.
• Understanding of network and security architecture concepts and applying them pragmatically (authentication/authorization, secure API patterns, data protection).
• Proven track record as a tech lead across both UI and services (hands-on delivery + mentorship + standards).

Key Responsibilities

• Provide application designs and lead design discussions; execute development against design; navigate and improve a complex codebase.
• Lead full-stack delivery across a React front end and Java/Spring backend services, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, and aligned to engineering standards.
• Design, build, and evolve RESTful APIs that support both the web application and an Android-based inspection application.
• Establish and enforce best practices for API design, service resilience, data access patterns, test strategy, documentation hygiene, and release readiness.
• Develop a high-quality front-end codebase, including performance-minded UI patterns, robust error handling, and maintainable component architecture.
• Oversee developer output through code reviews and technical guidance; mentor engineers on principles, patterns, processes, and practical problem-solving.
• Partner with product leadership to plan current and future work; contribute to sequencing, estimation, and delivery predictability.
• Collaborate with architects and peer tech leads to align on design direction and shared platform standards.
• Create, maintain, and continuously improve technical documentation and design artifacts to keep system knowledge current.
• Participate in analysis of the technology environment to detect deficiencies and recommend/implement improvements.
• Promote the capture and reuse of intellectual capital (reusable components, shared patterns, and well-documented implementations).
• Provide support for applications, partnering with support and infrastructure stakeholders as needed.
• Participate in an on-call rotation.