Lead Software Engineer – Java Platform Modernization (WebSphere + Axway MFT)

Kardow; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Kardow, a leading consumer lending company, is seeking a hands-on Technical Lead to finish two modernization programs on its enterprise Document Management Platform. You will retire IBM WebSphere and replace Axway managed file transfer, guiding a seasoned engineering team through delivery and cutovers with minimal business impact.

You will migrate Java workloads to containerized runtimes on OpenShift, migrate Axway file flows to a new ingestion service on OpenShift and AWS, and design hybrid

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering with leadership experience.
• Led platform retirement or major migration end to end.
• Hands-on experience with IBM WebSphere replacement.
• Proven track record delivering production systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead an engineering team and own the delivery plan, milestones, and cutover sequencing.
• Migrate Java workloads from WebSphere to container runtimes on OpenShift.
• Migrate Axway file flows to a new ingestion service on OpenShift and AWS.
• Design hybrid OpenShift and AWS patterns including IAM, S3, SQS, and observability.
• Own resilience: SLOs, alerts, incident response, and root-cause analysis.
• Integrate with mainframe, branch infra, vendor platforms via file transfer, batch, Kafka, IBM MQ, GraphQL, and REST.
• Mentor engineers, set code and CI/CD standards, and document, automate, and cross-train.

Skills

Java

TypeScript/Node.js

AWS

GraphQL

REST

PostgreSQL

Leadership

CI/CD

Tools

OpenShift

Kubernetes

Axway SecureTransport

IBM MQ

Kafka

S3

Job description

About The Role

A leading consumer lending company needs a hands-on technical lead to finish two in-flight modernization programs on its enterprise Document Management Platform: retiring IBM WebSphere and replacing Axway managed file transfer. These systems sit on the critical path of loan origination and servicing, so every cutover must be invisible to the business. You'll lead an established engineering team, own the delivery plan, and leave the team fully able to run everything you build.

What You'll Do

• Lead an existing engineering team day to day and own the delivery plan, milestones, and cutover sequencing for both programs.
• Migrate remaining Java workloads off IBM WebSphere to containerized runtimes (Spring Boot, Open Liberty, or Quarkus) on OpenShift, removing JNDI, EJB, MQ bindings, and container-managed security dependencies.
• Catalog and migrate every Axway inbound and outbound file flow onto a new file ingestion service on OpenShift and AWS, covering SFTP/FTPS/AS2, PGP, scheduling, retries, dead-letter/replay, and compliance-grade audit.
• Design hybrid OpenShift and AWS patterns: networking, IAM and secrets, S3 storage, SQS/SNS/EventBridge, and end-to-end observability.
• Own resilience for critical flows: SLOs, alerting, failover, incident response, and root-cause analysis.
• Integrate with mainframe, branch infrastructure, and vendor platforms via file transfer, batch, Kafka, IBM MQ, GraphQL, and REST.
• Mentor engineers, set code and CI/CD standards, and document, automate, and cross-train so the team owns the platform when the engagement ends.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering, including several years as technical lead for business-critical production systems.
• Led at least one platform retirement or major migration end to end, from scoping through decommission.
• Deep Java expertise, with hands-on IBM WebSphere (or another Java EE server) and migration to Spring Boot, Open Liberty, Quarkus, or similar on Kubernetes.
• Hands-on managed file transfer experience: Axway SecureTransport/B2Bi or comparable (IBM Sterling, GoAnywhere, MOVEit), including SFTP/FTPS/AS2, PGP, and partner onboarding.
• Production experience on OpenShift or Kubernetes: images, Helm/operators, ingress, secrets, CI/CD.
• Hands-on AWS: S3, IAM, SQS/SNS/EventBridge, Lambda, Transfer Family, and secure on-prem-to-AWS connectivity.
• Kafka and IBM MQ, including delivery guarantees, ordering, replay, and dead-letter handling.
• Working proficiency in TypeScript/Node.js; strong GraphQL, REST, and Postgres.
• Experience integrating with or retiring mainframe and legacy on-prem systems.
• Prior experience stepping into an in-flight program as a contractor or consultant.

Nice to Have

• Document-centric systems (capture, content management, e-signature, archive) or other high-volume regulated data.
• Financial services or lending background.

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