Associate Director Staff Engineer (GraphQL, Java, Kotlin, Nodejs)

OneMain Financial; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

OneMain Financial is seeking an experienced architect in Washington, DC, to design scalable and resilient communication platforms. This role involves hands-on engineering, collaborating across teams, and ensuring alignment with the enterprise architecture. Candidates should have strong expertise in backend architecture, Kubernetes, and distributed systems. Domain experience in financial services or communication platforms is preferred. Join OneMain to drive innovative solutions within a forward-thinking team.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in backend architecture and distributed systems design.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and containerization technologies.
• Familiarity with GraphQL, REST, and event-driven architectures.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve scalable architectures for communication platforms.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams for solution alignment.
• Establish architecture standards and enforce best practices.

Skills

Backend architecture

Distributed systems design

Kubernetes

GraphQL

Microservices

CI/CD

Java

Kotlin

Node.js

Go

Job description

Responsibilities and Architecture

• Architecture Design & Domain-Aligned Solutions
• Define and evolve scalable, resilient architectures for communication platforms supporting customer engagement (voice, messaging, digital channels)
• Design solutions aligned to industry-specific requirements:
• Communications: real-time processing, high availability
• Ensure alignment with enterprise target-state architecture and platform strategy
• Hands-on Engineering (≈50%)
• Design and implement backend services, APIs, and integration layers
• Build and deploy applications using containerized environments and Kubernetes orchestration
• Develop production-grade code, prototypes, and reference implementations
• Architect API-first ecosystems, including GraphQL and RESTful services
• Design event-driven and streaming architectures to support real-time communication and marketing workflows
• Integrate with enterprise platforms such as:
• Contact center / CPaaS platforms
• Marketing automation and customer data platforms

• Cross-functional Leadership & Influence
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and enterprise architecture teams to ensure solution alignment and execution
• Act as a thought partner, introducing innovative approaches and improving system design quality
• Influence decisions across teams without formal authority

• Standards, Governance & Continuous Improvement
• Establish and enforce architecture standards, reusable patterns, and engineering guardrails
• Drive simplification, scalability, and reduction of technical debt
• Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend pragmatic adoption aligned to business value

Technical Skills

• Strong expertise in backend architecture and distributed systems design
• Hands-on experience with:
• Kubernetes and containerization (Docker, orchestration patterns)
• GraphQL and modern API architectures (REST, event-driven systems)
• Microservices and cloud-native platforms
• Observability: Distributed tracing (X-Ray/OpenTelemetry), structured logging, metrics/alerting pipelines.
• Messaging & Orchestration: SQS/EventBridge or equivalents (Pub/Sub, Service Bus); DLQs; workflow engines.
• CI/CD: Automated pipelines with tools including Github Actions, Jenkins or equivalent experience
• Experience building or supporting real-time or high-throughput systems
• Proficiency in backend technologies (e.g., Java, Kotlin, Node.js, Go, or similar)

Domain Experience (Preferred)

• Candidates should have experience in one or more of the following:
• Financial Services
• Secure, compliant systems (PII, PCI, regulatory constraints)
• Transactional platforms (payments, lending, servicing)
• Communications / MarTech / Contact Center
• Low-latency, high-availability distributed systems
• Personalization engines, campaign orchestration
• Voice, messaging, IVR, or omnichannel engagement platforms

Architecture & Engineering Capabilities

• Ability to operate across strategic architecture and hands-on implementation
• Strong grounding in:
• scalability, resiliency, and performance engineering
• API lifecycle and governance
• system integration and orchestration patterns
• Experience aligning solutions to enterprise target-state architecture

Personal Attributes

• Self-starter: Proactively drives outcomes with minimal oversight
• Thought provocateur: Challenges existing paradigms and elevates architectural thinking
• Collaborative: Builds alignment across engineering, product, and architecture teams
• Pragmatic: Balances long-term vision with near-term delivery needs
• Influential communicator: Clearly conveys complex technical concepts to varied stakeholders