Lead Software Engineer (Java / AWS)

Role: Lead Software Engineer (Java / AWS)
Location:Chicago, IL
Work Model: Hybrid (3 days/week onsite)

Let's create our future together at The AES Group!

About The AES Group:
The AES Group is a premier technology and engineering consulting company that has been bringing businesses and talent together for over 20 years to deliver innovative solutions that have the greatest positive impact on society. AES has helped over 40 business enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies, engage their customers, empower their employees, and transform their business operations with the power of cloud, data, AI, engineering, and other emerging technologies.

Job Overview
We are seeking an experienced Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership in designing and developing cloud-native backend applications using Java, Spring Boot, and AWS. This is a hands-on engineering role responsible for architecting scalable distributed systems, leading technical decisions, mentoring engineers, and driving best practices across cloud-native application development.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of Java-based cloud-native applications on AWS.
• Build scalable microservices using Spring Boot.
• Design and implement RESTful APIs and event-driven services.
• Architect highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems.
• Develop asynchronous messaging solutions using Kafka or similar technologies.
• Design cloud infrastructure leveraging AWS managed services.
• Implement Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD best practices.
• Lead technical design discussions, architecture reviews, and code reviews.
• Improve system observability through logging, metrics, monitoring, and distributed tracing.
• Troubleshoot production issues and optimize application performance.
• Collaborate with Product Owners, Architects, and cross-functional engineering teams.
• Mentor engineers and establish engineering standards and best practices.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• 3+ years of technical leadership or team lead experience preferred.
• Strong experience building enterprise-scale backend applications.
• No degree required.

Required Technical Skills

• AWS Cloud Architecture
• Java (Advanced) and/or Kotlin
• Spring Boot
• Microservices Architecture
• REST API Development
• OpenAPI / Swagger
• SQL & Relational Databases
• NoSQL Databases (DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra)
• Kafka or Event-Driven Messaging
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Build & Deployment Automation
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud-Native Development
• Observability (Logging, Metrics, Tracing)
• Production Support & Performance Tuning

Preferred Experience

• Designing highly available distributed systems.
• Infrastructure as Code.
• Event-driven architecture.
• Cloud-native application modernization.
• Technical architecture and solution design.
• Agile/Scrum development environment.