Sr System Engineer - Technical Lead

ZipStaff Inc.; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 96,000 - 179,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance.

Dental Insurance.

Vision Insurance.

401(k) + 401(k) matching.

Paid time off.

Referral Program.

Job summary

ZipStaff is seeking a Sr System Engineer - Technical Lead in Washington, DC, primarily remote with mandatory in-person SAFe PI Planning. You will architect distributed systems, and lead design and deployment of high-throughput microservices in Java and Spring Boot, while mentoring engineers.

You will build Kafka pipelines, work with AWS, containers, IaC, and implement observability, security and code quality.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS, IT or Engineering (or equivalent) and 10+ years of software engineering, including 8+ years of Java.
• 5+ years building enterprise microservices with Java, Spring Boot and the Spring ecosystem.
• 3+ years as a hands-on Senior Technical Lead, Lead or Principal Engineer.
• Expertise with Apache Kafka, event-driven architecture, DDD and fault-tolerant integration patterns.
• Strong relational/NoSQL tuning, complex SQL and AWS core services.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, implementation and deployment of resilient, high-throughput microservices and shared components in Java and Spring Boot.
• Build configuration-driven rules engines, common SDKs and shared libraries to standardize delivery.
• Develop Kafka producers, consumers and messaging pipelines with retries, circuit breakers and dead-letter queues.
• Design scalable relational and NoSQL data models and resolve database performance issues.
• Build containerized apps on AWS (Lambda, S3, EC2, API Gateway, SQS/SNS) with IaC and DevSecOps CI/CD.
• Implement distributed tracing, metrics, logging, secrets management and API security (OAuth2, JWT).
• Lead code reviews, troubleshoot complex defects and mentor engineers.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

Distributed Systems

Kafka

AWS

Microservices

Architecture Leadership

Education

Bachelor's in CS, IT or Engineering

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

OpenShift

CloudWatch

Job description

Job Title: Sr System Engineer - Technical Lead

Location: Washington, DC (Primarily remote; in-person PI Planning required)

Employment Type: W2 Contract

Duration: 11 months

About the Opportunity

ZipStaff is hiring a Sr System Engineer - Technical Lead (Java / Distributed Systems) for our client, a major U.S. passenger rail transportation organization based in Washington, DC. As a hands‑on coding leader, you will architect reusable frameworks, rules‑driven engines, event‑driven pipelines and shared libraries powering business‑critical services, using Java, Spring Boot, Kafka and AWS. The role is primarily remote, with mandatory in‑person SAFe PI Planning and occasional milestone visits to offices in Washington, DC, Wilmington, DE or Philadelphia, PA.

What You'll Do

• Lead design, implementation and deployment of resilient, high-throughput microservices and shared components in Java and Spring Boot.
• Build configuration‑driven rules engines, common SDKs and shared libraries to standardize delivery.
• Develop Kafka producers, consumers and messaging pipelines with retries, circuit breakers and dead‑letter queues.
• Design scalable relational and NoSQL data models and resolve database performance issues.
• Build containerized apps on AWS (Lambda, S3, EC2, API Gateway, SQS/SNS) with IaC and DevSecOps CI/CD.
• Implement distributed tracing, metrics, logging, secrets management and API security (OAuth2, JWT).
• Lead code reviews, troubleshoot complex defects and mentor engineers.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's in CS, IT or Engineering (or equivalent) and 10+ years of software engineering, including 8+ years of Java.
• 5+ years building enterprise microservices with Java, Spring Boot and the Spring ecosystem.
• 3+ years as a hands‑on Senior Technical Lead, Lead or Principal Engineer.
• Expertise with Apache Kafka, event‑driven architecture, DDD and fault‑tolerant integration patterns.
• Strong relational/NoSQL tuning, complex SQL and AWS core services.

Nice to Have

• Docker, Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift.
• Splunk, Datadog, Grafana, CloudWatch or OpenTelemetry.
• Exposure to Angular front‑end integration.

Benefits

• Health Insurance.
• Dental Insurance.
• Vision Insurance.
• 401(k) + 401(k) matching.
• Paid time off.
• Referral Program.

About ZipStaff

ZipStaff connects skilled technology professionals with leading organizations across the United States, matching top talent with impactful contract and full‑time opportunities.