Role: Principal Software Engineer Location: USA, Remote Employment Type: Contract Job Description looking for someone with strong technical expertise in Java, SQL, Spring Boot, and React, along with hands-on experience using Claude. Ideally, this person should also demonstrate strong leadership qualities and the ability to guide and mentor engineering teams in the right direction. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Lead the design and delivery of scalable microservices using Java and Spring Boot, ensuring clean separation of concerns and resilience. Design and optimize MS SQL schemas, stored procedures, and queries to support high-throughput transactional workloads. Architect and maintain Kafka-based event-streaming pipelines for real-time data processing and decoupled service communication. Collaborate with UX and product teams to build responsive, accessible front-end interfaces integrated with back-end APIs. Conduct code reviews, define coding standards, and drive adoption of engineering best practices across the team. Mentor and coach 4 8 engineers; run 1:1s, support career growth, and resolve technical blockers. Partner with product managers and architects to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps. Champion observability, security, and CI/CD practices across the platform. Actively contribute to hiring screen candidates, run technical interviews, and help build the team. QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience with a track record of delivering production systems at scale. Deep expertise in Java (11+) and the Spring ecosystem Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Security, Spring Data. Strong MS SQL skills indexing strategies, execution plans, normalization, and T-SQL development. Proven experience building and operating Kafka pipelines in a distributed microservices environment. Solid front-end proficiency in at least one modern framework (React, Angular, or Vue) with an eye for usability. Demonstrated leadership: led a team of engineers, owned delivery milestones, and influenced architectural decisions. Comfortable in Agile/Scrum environments; experience facilitating sprint ceremonies. Strong communication skills able to explain complex decisions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform) is a strong plus. LEADERSHIP & SOFT SKILLS Inspires a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement within the team. Approaches conflict with empathy; builds consensus while being willing to make tough calls. Proactively identifies risks and escalates with solutions, not just problems. Acts as a bridge between engineering and the wider business translating strategy into execution. Job Responsibilities KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Lead the design and delivery of scalable microservices using Java and Spring Boot, ensuring clean separation of concerns and resilience. Design and optimize MS SQL schemas, stored procedures, and queries to support high-throughput transactional workloads. Architect and maintain Kafka-based event-streaming pipelines for real-time data processing and decoupled service communication. Collaborate with UX and product teams to build responsive, accessible front-end interfaces integrated with back-end APIs. Conduct code reviews, define coding standards, and drive adoption of engineering best practices across the team. Mentor and coach 4 8 engineers; run 1:1s, support career growth, and resolve technical blockers. Partner with product managers and architects to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps. Champion observability, security, and CI/CD practices across the platform. Actively contribute to hiring screen candidates, run technical interviews, and help build the team.