Job Title: Principal Software Engineer
Location: Remote (U.S.)
Employment Type: Contract (W2 through ZipStaff — No C2C or 1099)
About the Opportunity:
ZipStaff is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead design and delivery of scalable microservices for a leading healthcare analytics organization.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will architect Java / Spring Boot services, optimize high-throughput SQL workloads, own Kafka event-streaming pipelines, and mentor a team of 4–8 engineers. Candidates who cannot lead delivery and contribute production code will not be a fit.
What You’ll Do:
- Lead the design and delivery of scalable microservices using Java and Spring Boot, with clean separation of concerns and resilience.
- Design and optimize MS SQL schemas, stored procedures, and queries for high-throughput transactional workloads.
- Architect and maintain Kafka-based event-streaming pipelines for real-time processing and decoupled service communication.
- Collaborate with UX and product teams on responsive, accessible front-end interfaces integrated with back-end APIs.
- Conduct code reviews, define coding standards, and drive engineering best practices.
- Mentor and coach 4–8 engineers; run 1:1s, support career growth, and remove technical blockers.
- Partner with product managers and architects to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps.
- Champion observability, security, and CI/CD across the platform.
- Screen candidates, run technical interviews, and help build the team.
Required Qualifications:
- 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience delivering production systems at scale.
- Deep expertise in Java (11+) and the Spring ecosystem (Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Security, Spring Data).
- Strong MS SQL skills — indexing, execution plans, normalization, and T-SQL.
- Proven experience building and operating Kafka pipelines in a distributed microservices environment.
- Solid front-end proficiency in at least one modern framework (React, Angular, or Vue).
- Demonstrated leadership: led a team of engineers, owned delivery milestones, and influenced architecture.
- Comfortable in Agile / Scrum environments; experience facilitating sprint ceremonies.
- Strong communication skills with technical and non-technical stakeholders. Take Ownership, conflict/consensus, escalate with solutions, bridge to business.
- Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
- Healthcare analytics, claims, or other regulated data-platform background.
- Proven hiring / interview experience on an engineering team.
About ZipStaff
ZipStaff partners with leading organizations to connect skilled technology professionals with high-impact contract opportunities. We focus on quality matches and long-term success.
To apply, please submit your resume highlighting your Java/Spring Boot, MS SQL, Kafka, and engineering-leadership experience