Lead Software Engineer 

Job Category: Lead Software Engineer
Job Type: Hybrid
Job Location: Illinois
Compensation: Depends on Experience
W2: W2-Contract Only; Kindly note that applications on a C2C basis will not be considered for this role.

Job Description:

Caterpillar is seeking an experienced Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership in designing and developing cloud-native backend applications using Java, Spring Boot, and AWS. This is a hands-on engineering role responsible for architecting scalable distributed systems, leading technical decisions, mentoring engineers, and driving best practices across cloud-native application development.

Key Responsibilities

  • Lead the design and development of Java-based cloud-native applications on AWS. 
  • Build scalable microservices using Spring Boot. 
  • Design and implement RESTful APIs and event-driven services. 
  • Architect highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems. 
  • Develop asynchronous messaging solutions using Kafka or similar technologies. 
  • Design cloud infrastructure leveraging AWS managed services. 
  • Implement Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD best practices. 
  • Lead technical design discussions, architecture reviews, and code reviews. 
  • Improve system observability through logging, metrics, monitoring, and distributed tracing. 
  • Troubleshoot production issues and optimize application performance. 
  • Collaborate with Product Owners, Architects, and cross-functional engineering teams. 
  • Mentor engineers and establish engineering standards and best practices. 

Required Qualifications

  • 10+ years of software engineering experience. 
  • 3+ years of technical leadership or team lead experience preferred. 
  • Strong experience building enterprise-scale backend applications. 
  • No degree required. 

Required Technical Skills

  • AWS Cloud Architecture 
  • Java (Advanced) and/or Kotlin 
  • Spring Boot 
  • Microservices Architecture 
  • REST API Development 
  • OpenAPI / Swagger 
  • SQL & Relational Databases 
  • NoSQL Databases (DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra) 
  • Kafka or Event-Driven Messaging 
  • CI/CD Pipelines 
  • Build & Deployment Automation 
  • Distributed Systems 
  • Cloud-Native Development  
  • Observability (Logging, Metrics, Tracing) 
  • Production Support & Performance Tuning 

Preferred Experience

  • Designing highly available distributed systems. 
  • Infrastructure as Code. 
  • Event-driven architecture. 
  • Cloud-native application modernization. 
  • Technical architecture and solution design. 
  • Agile/Scrum development environment.