Technical Lead - Java, Spring Boot & GCP

As a Technical Lead / Tech Anchor within Ford Credit IT, you will be part of a balanced product team responsible for building and evolving digital products and services. You will work closely with Software Engineers, Product Managers, Product Owners, Designers, Architects, and Engineering Managers supporting Contact Center and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications.

You will provide technical leadership across the software delivery lifecycle, from discovery and architecture through development, testing, deployment, observability, and production support. You will promote modern engineering practices including Extreme Programming (XP), pair programming, Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), DevSecOps, and automated testing.

The ideal candidate combines strong hands-on Java engineering capabilities with cloud architecture expertise and the ability to guide teams through complex technical decisions.

• Define and evolve the technical roadmap and architecture for scalable, highly available digital platforms.

• Design, develop, test, and deploy applications using Java 17+, Spring Boot 3.x, Spring Framework, and microservices architectures.

• Design cloud-native solutions on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using services such as Cloud Run, Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, and Memorystore/Redis.

• Design resilient distributed systems incorporating appropriate scalability, availability, fault-tolerance, and disaster-recovery patterns.

• Build and maintain RESTful APIs and create API documentation using OpenAPI/Swagger or equivalent standards.

• Design API integration solutions using Apigee and Java/Spring Boot.

• Implement appropriate caching strategies, including reverse-proxy/endpoint caching, cache-aside, read-through, and write-through patterns.

• Conduct technical discovery to identify business requirements, technical constraints, current-state challenges, and target-state solutions.

• Evaluate solution alternatives against architecture, security, performance, reliability, maintainability, and cost requirements.

• Partner with enterprise and solution architects and follow established architecture governance processes.

• Contribute hands-on production-quality code and conduct code and architecture reviews.

• Establish and promote engineering quality practices using tools such as SonarQube, Cycode, and 42Crunch, where applicable.

• Develop automated unit, integration, contract, and performance tests.

• Apply TDD practices using technologies such as JUnit and Mockito and conduct performance testing using tools such as JMeter.

• Build and maintain CI/CD processes using technologies such as Google Cloud Build, Tekton, and Terraform.

• Integrate security practices, including Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), into the software delivery lifecycle.

• Establish application observability through monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting, and automated failure notifications using platforms such as Splunk and Dynatrace.

• Participate in and promote collaborative engineering practices including XP, pair programming, code reviews, and continuous improvement.

• Collaborate in Agile activities including stand-ups, backlog refinement, sprint reviews/demos, retrospectives, and journey mapping.

• Analyze user stories, identify technical dependencies and risks, and support effective engineering estimation and planning.

• Mentor engineers, improve engineering standards, and foster knowledge sharing across teams.

• Research emerging technologies and conduct proofs of concept (PoCs) where they can improve platform capability, developer productivity, resilience, or customer outcomes.

• Collaborate effectively with globally distributed teams and stakeholders supporting North American markets.

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering/Technology, MCA, or equivalent relevant education and professional experience.

• 6+ years of experience designing, developing, and maintaining enterprise web applications and backend services.

• Strong hands-on experience with Java and Spring Boot, including modern Java development practices.

• Experience designing and developing microservices and RESTful APIs.

• Experience designing scalable, resilient, and highly available distributed systems.

• 3+ years of experience with public cloud platforms, with strong practical experience in GCP preferred.

• Practical knowledge of GCP services such as Cloud Run, Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, and Redis/Memorystore, or equivalent services on other major cloud platforms.

• Experience with automated testing using tools/frameworks such as JUnit and Mockito.

• Experience implementing automated CI/CD pipelines.

• Working knowledge of Infrastructure as Code, preferably Terraform.

• Understanding of API management concepts and platforms such as Apigee.

• Understanding of application security, secure coding, and automated security testing practices.

• Experience implementing monitoring, logging, tracing, and production observability.

• Strong understanding of software engineering practices including clean code, code reviews, automated testing, TDD, and continuous integration.

• Ability to provide technical leadership, mentor engineers, and communicate complex technical decisions to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

Preferred

• Deep hands-on experience architecting solutions on GCP.
• Experience with reactive programming and event-driven architecture.
• Experience with asynchronous messaging and streaming/data pipeline patterns.
• Experience implementing multiple distributed caching strategies.
• Experience with Apigee API management.
• Experience with SonarQube, Cycode, 42Crunch, Splunk, and/or Dynatrace.
• Experience with Tekton and Google Cloud Build.
• Experience working in an Extreme Programming (XP) environment, including pair programming and TDD.
• Experience supporting large-scale customer-facing or Contact Center/CRM platforms.