Contract Technical Lead

Contract Technical Lead

We are seeking a highly technical, hands-on Technical Lead to support a large-scale enterprise migration and modernization initiative on a contractual basis with the company. This is a player-coach role for someone who can set technical direction while remaining deeply involved in implementation, design and code reviews, troubleshooting, and day-to-day guidance of engineering teams.

The ideal candidate is a senior Java engineer who has progressed into technical leadership or architecture while remaining hands-on, with deep experience across Java, AWS, enterprise integration, APIs, and complex data migrations.

What You'll Do

• Lead technical design and implementation for a complex enterprise migration and modernization program.

• Remain hands-on with Java/backend development, making implementation decisions, reviewing code and designs, and unblocking developers.

• Design and troubleshoot AWS solutions across compute, storage, networking, services, and deployment.

• Define REST APIs and service architectures, including contracts, versioning, integrations, resilience, and failure handling.

• Lead complex data migration and architecture decisions involving relational data, lineage, reconciliation, transformation, and authoritative data sources.

• Design event-driven solutions using messaging, queues, producer/consumer patterns, and asynchronous workflows.

• Integrate modern cloud applications with legacy databases, APIs, messaging platforms, files/SFTP, and enterprise adapters.

• Drive CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code practices using Git/GitHub, Harness, Terraform, and related technologies.

• Establish production-ready observability and support practices, including Dynatrace, logging, monitoring, retries, error handling, and troubleshooting.

• Incorporate enterprise identity and security standards, including Entra ID and role-based access controls.

• Translate architecture into actionable technical stories and implementation plans.

• Mentor engineers, establish development standards, and provide technical direction throughout delivery.

• Partner with business stakeholders to understand operational requirements and appropriately challenge technical or implementation assumptions.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, ideally within complex enterprise environments.

• Recent, hands-on experience with Java and backend engineering.

• 3-5+ years of AWS architecture/design experience, with the ability to troubleshoot at an implementation level.

• Experience serving as a Technical Lead, Lead Java Engineer, Lead Backend Engineer, Application Architect, or hands-on Solution Architect.

• Strong experience with REST APIs, microservices/service design, and enterprise integration patterns.

• Experience leading or supporting large-scale migrations, application modernization, or legacy transformation programs.

• Strong knowledge of relational databases, data migration, reconciliation, lineage, and system-of-record decisions.

• Experience with event-driven architecture, messaging, and asynchronous systems.

• Experience with Terraform, CI/CD, Git/GitHub, and modern deployment practices.

• Experience with production observability and support, ideally including Dynatrace.

• Working knowledge of enterprise security and identity, including Entra ID.

• Ability to balance hands-on engineering with technical leadership, mentoring, story decomposition, and stakeholder communication.

Preferred

• Experience modernizing or migrating complex legacy enterprise systems to AWS.

• Background working in environments with complicated system integrations, high-volume data, or mission-critical applications.

• Experience within airline, rail, transportation, or similarly complex operational industries.

• Experience supporting systems involving crew, employee records, training, certification, or other operational data.

We want everyone at the company to be able to envision a lasting and rewarding career here, which is why we offer a variety of career paths based on your skills and passions.  You decide where and how you want to develop, and we help get you there with customizable career progression and a comprehensive benefits package to support you along the way.

• Learning & Development – Programs offering certification and tuition support, digital on-demand learning courses, mentorship, and skill development paths

• Modern Health –A mental health and well-being platform that provides 1:1 care, group support sessions, and self-serve resources to support employees and their families through life’s ups and downs

• Carrot Fertility –Inclusive fertility and family-forming coverage for all paths to parenthood – including adoption, surrogacy, fertility treatments, pregnancy, and more – and opportunities for employer-sponsored funds to help pay for care

• Fringe –A company paid stipend program for personalized lifestyle benefits, allowing employees to choose benefits that matter most to them – ranging from vendors like Netflix, Spotify, and GrubHub to services like student loan repayment, travel, fitness, and more

• Employee Resource Groups – Employee-led committees that embrace and incorporate diversity and inclusion into our day-to-day operations

• Philanthropic Partnerships – Opportunities to engage in partnerships and pro-bono projects that support our communities.

• 401(k) Matching – Generous matching and no vesting period to help you continue to build financial wellness

The company supports Equal Pay for all. In addition, in the State of Colorado, we are committed to Equal Pay for ALL in accordance with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. The hourly rate range for this role is: $80/hr-100/hr.

The company is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering a culture of equality, inclusion and fairness — each foundational to our core values.  We strive to create a diverse environment where each employee is encouraged to bring their unique ideas, backgrounds and experiences to the workplace. For more information about our Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging efforts, click  HERE .

At this time, the company cannot transfer nor sponsor a work visa for this position. Applicants must be authorized to work directly for any employer in the United States without visa sponsorship.

The company is an award-winning consulting firm that collaborates with clients to achieve what’s possible through the power of technology. At the company, we’re passionate about the work we do and the results we achieve for our clients. From the outset, our founders shared a collective passion to create a consultancy centered on strong relationships that would stand the test of time. Today we work alongside clients that include Fortune 100 companies, mid-sized enterprises, and government agencies, a list that spans across the country.