Full Stack Engineer / Tech Lead Save

About Stratiform

Stratiform Digital is a digital services firm that builds modern, cloud-native software for government and enterprise clients. We take on complex modernization work, moving legacy systems onto maintainable, well-architected AWS foundations, and we hold a high bar for engineering quality, testing, and clear communication.

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Technical Lead to drive the modernization of a legacy Java Spring Boot / Angular monolith into a cloud-native, microservices-based architecture on AWS. This first phase is a faithful re-implementation: existing functionality is preserved one-to-one, with no feature changes, the backend migrated from Java to Node.js and separated into its own independently deployable service. The goal is performance parity (no degradation) on a cleaner, more maintainable cloud-native foundation, with data self-service capabilities introduced for part of the team.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You will set technical direction, mentor engineers, manage stakeholder relationships, and champion engineering quality at every stage of the migration. The ideal candidate combines deep full-stack expertise with the communication skills and organizational maturity to keep a distributed team aligned and moving.

What You'll Do

• Lead the end-to-end migration of a legacy Java Spring Boot backend to Node.js microservices, guiding architectural decisions and an incremental delivery strategy.
• Own the technical roadmap for modernization: define milestones, manage trade-offs, and communicate progress clearly to engineering, product, and executive stakeholders.
• Champion a quality-first culture: enforce test-driven development, run code reviews, and establish acceptance criteria for all shipped work.
• Serve as the primary technical point of contact with clients and stakeholders; translate business requirements into actionable engineering plans.
• Mentor and grow a team of mid-to-senior engineers, providing hands-on guidance on architecture, code quality, and cloud-native best practices.
• Partner with the Cloud Engineer to define and enforce AWS infrastructure standards, CI/CD pipelines, and operational runbooks.
• Facilitate sprint ceremonies and technical planning; proactively identify and remove blockers.
• Document key architecture decisions, data flows, and migration runbooks to ensure long-term maintainability.
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What We're Looking For

Technical Leadership & Communication

• Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams through complex, multi-phase legacy modernization projects.
• Strong stakeholder management: able to present technical complexity in accessible terms and build confidence across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Excellent prioritization across competing demands in delivery, mentorship, and planning.
• Track record of mentoring engineers at multiple levels and raising team-wide standards.
• Experience establishing and enforcing TDD practices, definition-of-done criteria, and code review standards.

Full-Stack Engineering

• Strong Java background, including Spring Boot, JPA/Hibernate, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript for building RESTful and event-driven microservices.
• Experience migrating Angular front-end applications alongside back-end modernization.
• Deep relational database knowledge; hands-on PostgreSQL in production, including schema migration and performance tuning.
• Comfort leading brownfield analysis: identifying anti-patterns, assessing migration risk, and planning incremental decomposition (e.g., Strangler Fig).

Cloud & DevOps

• Hands-on AWS experience with managed services: Lambda, API Gateway, S3, RDS/Aurora, Step Functions, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, and CloudFront.
• Infrastructure as code with AWS CDK (preferred); able to review and contribute to CDK constructs and deployment pipelines.
• Strong CI/CD fundamentals; experience with GitHub Actions for build, test, and deployment automation.
• Familiarity with containerization (Docker) as it applies to microservices.

Quality & Testing

• Established test-driven development practice across unit, integration, and acceptance layers.
• Experience with front-end testing, including Playwright for end-to-end and acceptance testing.
• Ability to define and enforce testing standards and coverage expectations across a team.

Experience & Qualifications

• 8+ years of full-stack engineering experience, including at least 2 years as a technical lead or principal engineer.
• Proven experience leading a monolith-to-microservices migration with direct ownership of the data and service decomposition strategy.
• Hands-on experience modernizing systems from Java to Node.js in production.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (equivalent experience accepted).
• Prior experience supporting federal or government contracts is a plus.
• AWS certifications (Solutions Architect, Developer, or DevOps Engineer) are a strong plus.

Ideal Technology Experience

Java · Spring Boot · Node.js · TypeScript · Angular · PostgreSQL · AWS (Lambda, RDS/Aurora, S3, Step Functions, SQS, EventBridge) · AWS CDK · GitHub Actions · Docker · Playwright