Lead Software Engineer - Java/AWS/Kafka

Next Frontier Capital; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

JPMorganChase in New York is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to drive backend platform design and delivery on an agile team. You’ll shape architectures, write production code, and guide cross‑functional collaboration.

Responsibilities include building distributed services with Java/Kafka/AWS, ensuring scalability, reliability, and observability, plus mentoring engineers and promoting modern engineering practices.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of applied software engineering experience.
• Expert proficiency in Java (Java 17+), including concurrency and performance tuning.
• Hands-on experience building and operating distributed systems with Apache Kafka (partitions/consumer groups, exactly-once semantics, schema management).
• Strong AWS experience and infrastructure-as-code (ECS/EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, S3, KMS, IAM, CloudWatch; Terraform or CloudFormation).
• Strong grasp of event-driven and microservices architecture, REST APIs, and asynchronous messaging patterns.
• Proven experience implementing CI/CD, automated testing, and safe deployment strategies (blue/green or canary).
• Solid reliability and observability fundamentals (retries/idempotency/timeouts; logs/metrics/tracing).
• Experience leading projects/teams, setting technical direction, and delivering complex production systems.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum (or similar).

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and delivery of distributed, event-driven back-end services (Java, Kafka, AWS), from concept through production support
• Set architecture direction and standards for scalability, reliability, and observability across services
• Partner with product, architecture, and platform teams to turn requirements into resilient designs and executable roadmaps
• Raise engineering quality through strong CI/CD, automated testing, code reviews, and operational readiness (SLIs/SLOs, on-call)
• Own production operations for critical services (monitoring, incident response, root‑cause analysis, and continuous improvement)
• Drive data modeling and API design for high‑throughput, low‑latency systems, including backward compatibility and schema evolution
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, pair programming, coaching, and technical guidance

Skills

Java (Java 17+)

Kafka

AWS

CI/CD

REST APIs

Distributed systems

Agile/Scrum

System design

Java performance tuning

Tools

Terraform

ECS/EKS

CloudWatch

Job description

We have an opportunity to impact your career and provide an adventure where you can push the limits of what's possible.

As a Lead Software Engineer at JPMorganChase within Consumer and Community Banking, you’ll be a key technical leader on an agile team building secure, stable, scalable back-end platforms. You’ll shape designs, write production code, and guide delivery across teams to solve meaningful business problems with modern engineering practices.

Job responsibilities

• Lead the design and delivery of distributed, event-driven back-end services (Java, Kafka, AWS), from concept through production support
• Set architecture direction and standards for scalability, reliability, and observability across services
• Partner with product, architecture, and platform teams to turn requirements into resilient designs and executable roadmaps
• Raise engineering quality through strong CI/CD, automated testing, code reviews, and operational readiness (SLIs/SLOs, on-call)
• Own production operations for critical services (monitoring, incident response, root‑cause analysis, and continuous improvement)
• Drive data modeling and API design for high‑throughput, low‑latency systems, including backward compatibility and schema evolution
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, pair programming, coaching, and technical guidance

Required qualifications, capabilities, and skills

• Formal training or certification on software engineering concepts and 5+ years applied experience
• Expert proficiency in Java (Java 17+), including concurrency, collections, and performance tuning/profiling
• Hands‑on experience building and operating distributed systems with Apache Kafka (e.g., partitions/consumer groups, exactly‑once semantics, schema management)
• Strong AWS experience and infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g., ECS/EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, RDS, S3, KMS, IAM, CloudWatch; Terraform or CloudFormation)
• Strong grasp of event‑driven and microservices architecture, REST APIs, and asynchronous messaging patterns
• Proven experience implementing CI/CD, automated testing, and safe deployment strategies (e.g., blue/green or canary)
• Solid reliability and observability fundamentals (e.g., retries/idempotency/timeouts; logs/metrics/tracing)
• Experience leading projects/teams, setting technical direction, and delivering complex production systems
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum (or similar)

Preferred qualifications, capabilities, and skills

• End-to-end delivery experience from scope through launch, including cross‑team coordination
• Experience with Spring Boot/Spring Cloud, Micrometer, and reactive programming (Project Reactor)
• Familiarity with modern security practices (OAuth2/OIDC, mTLS, secrets management, least‑privilege IAM, threat modeling)
• Experience with high‑throughput systems and stream processing (Kafka Streams and/or Spark), including exactly‑once patterns
• Exposure to DDD and modern architecture patterns (hexagonal/clean architecture)
• Hands‑on use of observability/production tooling (e.g., Splunk, Dynatrace, Grafana)

We offer a competitive total rewards package including base salary determined based on the role, experience, skill set and location. Those in eligible roles may receive commission‑based pay and/or discretionary incentive compensation, paid in the form of cash and/or forfeitable equity, awarded in recognition of individual achievements and contributions. We also offer a range of benefits and programs to meet employee needs, based on eligibility. These benefits include comprehensive health care coverage, on‑site health and wellness centers, a retirement savings plan, backup childcare, tuition reimbursement, mental health support, financial coaching and more. Additional details about total compensation and benefits will be provided during the hiring process.

We recognize that our people are our strength and the diverse talents they bring to our global workforce are directly linked to our success. We are an equal opportunity employer and place a high value on diversity and inclusion at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute, including race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital or veteran status, pregnancy or disability, or any other basis protected under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for applicants’ and employees’ religious practices and beliefs, as well as mental health or physical disability needs. Visit our FAQs for more information about requesting an accommodation.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veterans