Senior Full Stack Engineer

Senior Full Stack Engineer
Malvern, PA – Hybrid

– Role Overview
The hiring manager is seeking a Senior Full Stack Engineer to join a team that recently experienced turnover and now needs a strong senior-level contributor. The ideal candidate will not only contribute technically but also help mentor and support junior engineers while driving progress against the team backlog.
Core Technical Requirements
The team's primary technology stack includes:

• Frontend: React and TypeScript
• Backend: Java Spring Boot APIs
• Cloud/Infrastructure: AWS ecosystem, including:
  • ECS
  • S3
  • IAM
  • CloudFormation

The role is heavily focused on full-stack development, with an emphasis on frontend capabilities. Candidates should also be comfortable working within cloud infrastructure environments and supporting operational or infrastructure-related backlog items when needed.
Preferred / "Nice-to-Have” Skills
The manager highlighted several additional areas that would strongly differentiate candidates:
Mobile Development Experience
The team plans to evolve toward a mobile-first experience and is early in defining that strategy. Experience with any of the following would be highly valuable:

• iOS development
• Android development
• React Native

A candidate with mobile expertise could help shape direction and execution for future mobile initiatives.
AI-Enabled Development
The organization is actively leveraging AI-assisted development tools such as:

• Claude
• GitHub Copilot

Candidates who have prior experience integrating AI tools into engineering workflows, development acceleration, or team enablement would be viewed favorably.
Infrastructure & Operations Exposure
Although this is not strictly a DevOps role, the team does expect engineers to have familiarity with cloud infrastructure and containerized deployments. The application is deployed via AWS ECS, and developers may occasionally work on tasks such as:

• Container optimization
• Performance tuning under varying load
• Infrastructure-related backlog items

Database Ownership
This team does not directly own the database layer. A sister team manages:

• Database infrastructure
• Redis clusters
• Additional backend services

However, general familiarity with common infrastructure technologies such as Redis is still considered beneficial.
Architecture Expectations
This role is not expected to lead enterprise architecture initiatives. The broader platform has already been modernized, and architectural leadership is primarily handled by existing tech leads and senior engineering leadership.
That said, the selected candidate should still be capable of:

• Providing technical guidance
• Supporting junior developers
• Contributing to design discussions where appropriate

Interview Process
The expected interview structure will include:

1. Initial technical/manager round
2. Follow-up interview with a senior developer or team representative
3. Final team-fit discussion led by the hiring manager

Candidate Targeting Notes
The recruiting team plans to:

• Source new candidates externally
• Review previously screened candidates from similar openings
• Prioritize former Vanguard contractors where applicable, since they can onboard quickly and are already familiar with the environment and processes

Key Candidate Profile Summary
Ideal candidates will bring:

• Strong React + TypeScript experience
• Java Spring Boot API development
• AWS cloud infrastructure familiarity
• Senior-level mentorship capabilities
• Ability to work across frontend and backend responsibilities

Additional differentiators include:

• Mobile development experience
• AI-assisted engineering experience
• Containerization and ECS optimization exposure