Technical Lead (Backend, Java / Spring Boot)

Job Description - Technical Lead (Backend, Java / Spring Boot)

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced Technical Lead with deep expertise in Java, Spring Boot, Microservices, GraphQL, and Kafka to lead a team of engineers supporting a large-scale, enterprise e-commerce platform. The platform consists of a sophisticated distributed architecture that powers mission-critical business capabilities and serves a large user base.

The ideal candidate is a technically strong leader who can architect solutions, set engineering standards, and mentor a team of developers, while remaining hands-on enough to guide implementation on the most complex problems. This individual will partner closely with an Engineering Manager and Engineering Director, owning technical direction for their area and representing the team in architectural and cross-functional discussions.

This role suits someone who combines strong system design and coding expertise with leadership, stakeholder management, and a track record of delivering complex initiatives through others.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

Own the technical design and architecture of backend services using Java, Spring Boot, and Microservices, ensuring scalability, resilience, and maintainability.

Define and enforce engineering standards, design patterns, and best practices across the team.

Lead architectural decisions for APIs and service integrations using REST and GraphQL.

Evaluate technical trade-offs and drive decisions on system design, tooling, and technology adoption.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

Lead, mentor, and grow a team of software engineers, providing technical guidance and career development support.

Conduct code reviews and design reviews, upholding high standards for quality and craftsmanship.

Support hiring, onboarding, and skill development within the team.

Foster a culture of ownership, continuous learning, and technical excellence.

Delivery Ownership

Translate product and business objectives into technical roadmaps and actionable work for the team.

Break down complex initiatives into well-scoped, deliverable units of work.

Ensure high-quality feature delivery within aggressive timelines, balancing speed with system stability.

Proactively identify and mitigate technical risks across the delivery lifecycle.

System Analysis & Problem Solving

Guide complex technical, functional, and data analysis efforts to support business initiatives and critical production issues.

Lead root-cause analysis and resolution of critical production incidents, ensuring timely and thorough remediation.

Drive investigation of performance bottlenecks, service failures, and integration issues across interconnected systems.

Event-Driven Architecture

Set direction for Kafka-based event-driven solutions, including reliability, monitoring, and error-handling standards.

Guide the team on architectural improvements that increase scalability and resilience of distributed systems.

Database & Data Strategy

Guide database design and optimization strategy for high-performance applications.

Review and approve complex SQL, stored procedures, and performance-tuning approaches.

Partner with database and platform teams to ensure data integrity, consistency, and long-term scalability.

Operational Excellence

Champion monitoring, logging, and observability practices to improve system reliability.

Own production support strategy for business-critical applications, driving continuous improvement from operational learnings.

Establish on-call practices and incident response processes for the team.

Stakeholder Collaboration

Act as the primary technical point of contact for Product Owners, Business Analysts, QA, Architects, and Engineering Leadership.

Communicate technical strategy, trade-offs, and risks clearly to both technical and business stakeholders.

Represent the team in architectural review boards and cross-team planning.

Required Qualifications

Technical Skills

6+ years of backend software development experience, including 2+ years in a technical leadership or lead capacity.

Expert proficiency in Java and object-oriented design principles.

Extensive experience architecting and leading development with Spring Boot and Microservices.

Strong expertise in RESTful API and GraphQL design at scale.

Proven experience designing and operating Kafka or other event-streaming platforms in production.

Deep understanding of relational databases, SQL, and performance optimization.

Strong track record with distributed systems, scalability patterns, and high-volume transactional applications.

Demonstrated experience setting technical direction, design patterns, and coding standards for a team.

Experience with Git-based source control, CI/CD pipelines, and release management.

Strong grounding in cloud-native application development principles.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience leading teams on large-scale e-commerce, retail, supply chain, or order management platforms.

Experience with PostgreSQL or similar enterprise databases at scale.

Familiarity with AWS, Azure, or similar cloud platforms, including cost and scalability trade-offs.

Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Datadog, Grafana, or Splunk.

Experience with containerized environments using Docker and Kubernetes.

Track record supporting and leading response for mission-critical production systems.

Leadership & Soft Skills

Strong ability to balance hands-on technical work with team leadership and stakeholder management.

Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to influence senior stakeholders.

Proven ability to mentor engineers and elevate team capability over time.

Strong ownership mindset with accountability for both technical outcomes and team delivery.

Ability to manage multiple priorities and competing deadlines across a team.

Sound judgment in technical decision-making under ambiguity and pressure.