Back-End Developer IV

Kentro; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 159,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401(k) with employer match

Education reimbursement

Job summary

Kentro is seeking a Back-End Developer IV to lead enterprise-grade server-side design for the FAA ATLAS modernization program. The role focuses on decomposing legacy monoliths, building scalable microservices, and delivering secure, cloud-native APIs across multiple delivery teams.

You will drive architectural patterns, implement event-driven and API-first approaches, and mentor engineers while ensuring alignment with FAA policies and DevSecOps practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline.
• 8–10 years of progressive back-end development experience with leadership across multiple teams or a large system.
• Expert-level proficiency in one or more server-side stacks with a second stack and strong API design experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement server-side engineering patterns within enterprise architecture and platform standards.
• Lead complex system integrations across legacy and modernized systems with migration strategies.
• Architect and implement messaging and streaming infrastructure (Kafka, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, SQS/SNS).
• Design portfolio and application service/API layers aligned with API strategy and security patterns.
• Mentor mid-level and senior developers and provide technical leadership across teams.

Skills

Java/Spring Boot

.NET/C#

Python

Node.js/TypeScript

API design

Messaging systems

Kafka/RabbitMQ

AWS/Azure/GCP

DevSecOps

Cloud-native

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

OpenAPI

API gateway tooling

Job description

Overview

Thank you for considering IT Concepts dba Kentro, where innovation drives opportunity and collaboration leads to success. Our dynamic community of experts is fully committed to advancing our customers' missions, fostering professional growth, and making a positive impact on our communities.

By joining our supportive community, you will find that Kentro is dedicated to your personal and professional development. Together, we can drive meaningful change, spark innovation, and achieve extraordinary milestones.

Kentro is hiring a Back-End Developer IV to serve as lead back-end developer on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Accelerated Transformation of Legacy Applications and Systems (ATLAS) program — one of the largest civilian IT modernization efforts in the federal government. ATLAS covers a mission-support portfolio of more than 200 applications and roughly 3,000 databases, moving the agency off legacy sustainment and onto cloud-native architectures, automated workflows, DevSecOps delivery, and integrated AI capability.

In this role you translate portfolio architecture into server-side engineering patterns that back-end teams across the portfolio build against. You bring mastery of multiple back-end technologies, messaging systems, and integration patterns, and you apply it where the work is hardest: decomposing legacy monoliths, untangling point-to-point integrations built over decades, and standing up the enterprise APIs and services that replace them.

You lead complex system integrations, design portfolio and application service/API layers in alignment with the enterprise integration and API strategy, drive microservices adoption as a disciplined practice rather than a default, and provide technical leadership for large-scale back-end transformation across multiple delivery teams.

Location: Remote - This position can be performed remotely within the United States and will support Eastern Time working hours.

Compensation Range: The pay range for this position is $149,000-177,000 annually. Kentro determines compensation by evaluating current government contracting and commercial market conditions, as well as the role’s specific requirements. Final salary placement within this range will be based on the candidate’s relevant skills, experience, education, certifications, location, and security clearance level, where applicable.

This Job Description reflects the primary duties of the role; however, it is not intended to be all‑inclusive. Team members may be asked to take on additional responsibilities in alignment with customer expectations, business needs, and Kentro’s culture of collaboration and adaptability.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement server-side engineering patterns within established enterprise architecture and platform standards: runtime platforms, frameworks, service boundaries, data access patterns, and reusable service conventions
• Establish and maintain back-end implementation patterns — microservices, event-driven, API-first, domain decomposition — and apply the architectural criteria that determine when each is the right call
• Lead complex system integrations across legacy and modernized systems, including protocol translation, data reconciliation, and cutover sequencing on systems that cannot go down
• Design portfolio and application service/API layers in alignment with the enterprise API and integration strategy: RESTful and event-based interfaces, API contracts and versioning, gateway integration, authentication and authorization patterns, and developer-facing documentation
• Architect and implement messaging and streaming infrastructure (Kafka, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, or cloud-native equivalents), including delivery guarantees, idempotency, ordering, and failure handling
• Design the serverless and event-driven processing built around that infrastructure — AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, or equivalent for ingestion, transformation, and event handling — and determine where serverless is the right fit against containerized services on cost, latency, and sustainment grounds
• Drive decomposition of legacy monoliths into services: define bounded contexts, sequence the strangler-pattern migration, and manage the interim state where old and new run side by side
• Lead database modernization work on the back end — schema evolution, data migration, dual-write and sync strategies, and the transition off legacy data stores
• Set and enforce back-end engineering standards: coding standards, service templates, error handling, observability, resilience patterns, and performance budgets
• Own non-functional outcomes for back-end services: availability, latency, throughput, scalability, and cost efficiency in a cloud environment
• Integrate security into back-end design — secrets management, encryption in transit and at rest, least-privilege service identity, and controls aligned to FISMA, NIST SP 800-53, and applicable FAA and DOT policy
• Build and maintain the reusable back-end assets that make a modernization factory model work: service scaffolds, shared libraries, integration accelerators, and reference implementations
• Provide technical leadership, design review, and code review to back-end engineers across multiple teams; mentor mid-level and senior developers
• Partner with enterprise architecture, front-end, data, and cybersecurity leads to ensure back-end designs fit the target-state architecture
• Have the ability to write production code on the highest-complexity components as necessary — this is a hands‑on lead role, not a purely advisory one

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline
• 8–10 years of progressive back-end development experience, including demonstrated technical leadership across multiple teams or a large system
• Expert‑level proficiency in one or more major server‑side stacks, with working command of a second (e.g., Java/Spring Boot, .NET/C#, Python, Node.js/TypeScript, Go)
• Deep experience designing and operating enterprise APIs: REST, API contracts and versioning, gateway and management tooling, and API security patterns
• Hands‑on expertise with messaging and event‑driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ, SQS/SNS, or equivalent), including production experience with delivery semantics and failure modes
• Proven experience leading complex system integrations across heterogeneous legacy and modern systems
• Demonstrated experience decomposing monolithic applications into microservices, including the migration strategy — not just greenfield service development
• Strong database expertise across relational and non‑relational stores: data modeling, query performance, transactions, and large‑scale data migration
• Cloud‑native back‑end experience in a major cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including containers, orchestration, and managed services
• Practical DevSecOps experience: CI/CD, infrastructure as code, automated testing, and observability instrumented into services
• Ability to set standards other teams adopt, and to communicate technical trade‑offs to program leadership and government stakeholders
• Experience implementing observability, resilience, and performance engineering for distributed services, including tracing, metrics, fault handling, and capacity/performance testing
• Experience implementing shared engineering standards and reference patterns across multiple delivery teams
• Exceptional communication and executive presence; able to advise senior government and corporate stakeholders and to justify architectural decisions
• Working proficiency with approved AI‑assisted development tools for code analysis, refactoring, test generation, and documentation

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting FAA, DOT, or comparable federal civilian modernization programs
• Experience modernizing mainframe or COBOL‑era back ends, or integrating with them during transition
• Specification‑first API development using OpenAPI, including contract‑driven design, generated clients and servers, and automated contract testing
• Production experience designing and operating GraphQL APIs, including schema design, federation, resolver performance, and query cost control
• Experience building Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers or comparable interfaces that expose enterprise services and data to AI systems and agents
• Hands‑on experience with NoSQL data stores — document databases (MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cosmos DB) and graph databases (Neo4j, Neptune, or equivalent) — including knowing when each is the right choice over a relational store
• Large‑scale database modernization experience (Oracle, SQL Server, or mainframe data stores to cloud‑native or open‑source targets)
• Experience with service mesh, distributed tracing, and advanced observability in a microservices estate
• Familiarity with FAA enterprise architecture, security engineering, and Authority to Operate (ATO) processes
• Experience applying AI/ML or automated code transformation tooling to back‑end legacy modernization
• Relevant certifications: AWS or Azure Solutions Architect / Developer, Kubernetes (CKA/CKAD), or equivalent
• Prior experience in a modernization factory, delivery center, or platform engineering organization

Clearance Requirement

• US Citizen
• Existing FAA suitability determination or transferable federal background investigation strongly preferred

Benefits

The Company

We believe in generating success collaboratively, enabling long‑term mission success, and building trust for the next challenge. With you as our partner, let’s solve challenges, think innovatively, and maximize impact. As a valued member of our team, you have the unique opportunity to work in a diverse range of technology and business career paths, all while supporting our nation and delivering innovative technology solutions. We are a close community of experts that pride ourselves on creating an environment defined by teamwork, dedication, and excellence.

We hold three ISO certifications (27001:2013, 20000-1:2011, 9001:2015), two CMMI ML 3 ratings (DEV and SVC) and CMMC Level 2 Certification.

Industry Recognition

Growth | Inc 5000’s Fastest Growing Private Companies, DC Metro List Fastest Growing; Washington Business Journal: Fastest Growing Companies, Top Performing Small Technology Companies in Greater D.C.

Culture | Northern Virginia Technology Council Tech 100 Honoree; Virginia Best Place to Work; Washington Business Journal: Best Places to Work, Corporate Diversity Index Winner – Mid-Size Companies, Companies Owned by People of Color; Department of Labor’s HireVets for our work helping veterans transition; SECAF Award of Excellence finalist; Victory Military Friendly Brand; Virginia Values Veterans (V3); Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Corporate Breath Award

Benefits

We offer competitive benefits package including paid time off, healthcare benefits, supplemental benefits, 401k including an employer match, discount perks, rewards, and more. We invest in our employees – Every employee is eligible for education reimbursement for certifications, degrees, or professional development. Reimbursement amounts may fluctuate due to IRS limitations. We want you to grow as an expert and a leader and offer flexibility for you to take a course, complete a certification, or other professional growth and networking. We are committed to supporting your curiosity and sustaining a culture that prioritizes commitment to continuous professional development.

We work hard; we play hard. Kentro is committed to incorporating fun into every day. We dedicate funds for activities – virtual and in‑person – e.g., we host happy hours, holiday events, fitness & wellness events, and annual celebrations. In alignment with our commitment to our communities, we also host and attend charity galas/events. We believe in appreciating your commitment and building a positive workspace for you to be creative, innovative, and happy.

Commitment Equal Opportunity Employment & VEVRAA

Kentro is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

Kentro is strongly committed to compliance with VEVRAA and other applicable federal, state, and local laws governing equal employment opportunity. We have developed comprehensive policies and procedures to ensure our hiring practices align with these requirements.

As part of our VEVRAA compliance efforts, Kentro has established an equal opportunity plan outlining our commitment to recruiting, hiring, and advancing protected veterans. This plan is regularly reviewed and updated to ensure its effectiveness.

We encourage protected veterans to self‑identify during the application process. This information is strictly confidential and will only be used for reporting and compliance purposes as required by law. Providing this information is voluntary and will not impact your employment eligibility.

Our commitment to equal employment opportunity extends beyond legal compliance. We are dedicated to fostering an inclusive workplace where all employees, including protected veterans, are treated with dignity, respect, and fairness.

Accommodations

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Reasonable Accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. If you need to discuss reasonable accommodations, please email [e-mail].