Java Architect AWS Skills

• Role :
  Java Architect with AWS Skills
• Location :
  Johannesburg [ 3 days in a week from office ]
• Duration : 12 Months renewal contract
• Subcon Budget : R850/hr including your margin

Job Spec

We are seeking an experienced Technical Lead to drive the design, development, and delivery of enterprise-scale applications built on Java Spring Boot. This role is deeply hands-on, with a split of approximately 60% technical contribution (coding, architecture implementation, infrastructure design) and 40% leadership (mentorship, planning, governance, stakeholder engagement).

The successful candidate will lead teams in building secure, scalable, cloud-native applications hosted on AWS, with Azure Dev Ops powering CI/CD pipelines. You’ll be responsible for ensuring enterprise-grade reliability, performance, and compliance across backend services, APIs, and infrastructure.

Role Split:
Hands-On Technical vs. Leadership

• Hands-On:
Active development, architecture implementation, AWS infrastructure design.

• Leadership:
Mentoring engineers, enforcing standards, planning delivery, and engaging stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Define and uphold enterprise architecture standards across Spring Boot microservices.

• Mentor engineers, conduct code reviews, and enforce best practices.

• Align technical delivery with business objectives through close collaboration with Product Owners and Architects.

Backend Engineering

• Design and build scalable Java Spring Boot microservices for enterprise APIs and business logic.

• Implement secure, performant RESTful APIs consumed by internal and external systems.

• Manage API lifecycle and integration patterns with AWS API Gateway and Application Load Balancers (ALBs).

Cloud & Infrastructure (AWS)

• Architect and manage workloads on AWS ECS/EKS with Fargate, EC2, and Lambda.

• Configure ALBs for traffic routing, SSL termination, and health checks.

• Implement AWS WAF & Shield for application security and DDoS protection.

• Manage Amazon RDS/Aurora for relational databases and DynamoDB/Redis for No

SQL caching.

• Design secure VPC topologies with subnets, routing, security groups, and transit gateways.

• Use Route 53 for DNS, failover, and latency-based routing.

• Apply Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) with Terraform or Cloud Formation.

Dev Ops & CI/CD (Azure Dev Ops)

• Own and evolve Azure Dev Ops pipelines for build, test, security scanning, and deployment.

• Implement multi-stage pipelines with containerisation, automated testing, and approvals.

• Enforce branch strategies, pull request policies, and pipeline governance.

• Integrate security tooling (Sonar Qube, Snyk, OWASP Dependency Check) into CI/CD.

Security & Compliance

• Enforce OAuth2, OIDC, JWT authentication and session management.

• Apply Zero Trust principles across microservices.

• Manage secrets securely with AWS Secrets Manager and Parameter Store.

• Ensure compliance with enterprise standards (ISO, SOC2, GDPR).

Observability & Monitoring

• Lead observability strategy with Dynatrace and AWS Cloud Watch.

• Implement distributed tracing, synthetic monitoring, and error budgets.

• Define SLOs/SLIs aligned with enterprise reliability standards.

Core Technical Skills (Required)

• Java Spring Boot – advanced backend development and microservices.

• AWS Infrastructure – ALBs, WAFs, API Gateway, Route 53, ECS/EKS, RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB.

• Azure Dev Ops – CI/CD pipelines, boards, release management.

• Networking – VPCs, subnets, routing, security groups.

• Security – IAM, TLS/SSL, secrets management, OWASP API Top 10.

• Monitoring – Dynatrace, Cloud Watch, ELK stack.

Qualifications & Experience

• Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent.

• 6–10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years in a technical lead role.

• Proven expertise in Java Spring Boot and microservices architecture.

• Hands-on experience with AWS hosting and enterprise networking/security.

• Strong background in Azure Dev Ops CI/CD pipeline design.

• Experience in Agile/SAFe delivery frameworks.

Behavioral Competencies

• Enterprise Visionary:
Translates business needs into scalable, secure technical architecture.

• Security-First Leader:
Embeds security into every layer of design.

• Collaborative Mentor:
Builds strong engineering culture and cross-team relationships.

• Detail-Oriented:
High standards for code quality, documentation, and governance.

• Adaptable & Innovative:
Thrives in complex enterprise environments with evolving requirements.

• Clear Communicator:
Explains technical concepts to executives and non-technical stakeholders.