Lead Software Engineer (JAVA,API Job Toronto area,North York Ontario Canada,Software Development

Position: Lead Software Engineer (JAVA, API)
Location: North York

Job Description

Lead Software Engineer - Squad Tech Lead

Our teams are dedicated to supporting, enhancing and discovering new ways to help our clients achieve lifetime financial security, live healthier lives and connect with us. Through innovation and collaboration, we're striving to deliver best-in-class technology solutions for our digital clients.

We are currently seeking a Squad Tech Lead to provide technical design, development, support and analysis for large-scale applications and systems in a new agile team within the Canadian IT Platforms and Engineering team. This permanent role combines hands-on technical work with leadership responsibilities. The successful candidate is a team player with excellent technical and problem-solving skills, is aware of industry trends, questions the status quo and can identify and propose alternatives.

Come join us as we continue to intensify the focus on our digital journey, building APIs and improving our client experience.

What will you do?

Collaborate with skilled Agile team members to understand user needs and design, develop and deliver high quality web applications that meet those needs

Configure and design applications and workflows, using outside the box thinking, to create innovative ways to advance our client first strategy

Lead AI-assisted development practices, leveraging Git Hub Copilot and other AI coding tools to accelerate development velocity and improve code quality

Design, develop, and integrate AI agents and conversational interfaces to enhance application capabilities and deliver intelligent automation solutions

Champion secure coding practices and lead efforts to identify, prioritize, and remediate application security vulnerabilities using SAST/DAST tools

Conduct security code reviews and ensure compliance with security standards and best practices throughout the development lifecycle

Coach, mentor and collaborate with members of the design and development team

Provide technical direction and guidance to projects, ensuring risks are mitigated and projects are implemented successfully

Establish coding standards and technical best practices across the squad

Conduct code reviews and mentor team members on technical excellence

Support developers in removing technical blockers and guide technical implementation of user stories and features

Communicate technical risks, dependencies, and constraints to stakeholders

Participate in planning and refinement sessions with technical perspective and collaborate with Product Owner on technical feasibility and estimates

Drive quality standards and testing practices; identify technical debt and propose solutions

Monitor system performance and reliability and champion continuous improvement initiatives

Contribute to defining timelines and plans; analyze and estimate feasibility, cost, time and scope

Ensure coding, testing, debugging, and implementation activities are completed as required

Participate in agile ceremonies and support on-call and incident response when needed

Represent the squad's technical interests in cross-squad discussions and collaborate with other Tech Leads across squads for consistency

What you need to succeed ?

Minimum 8 to 10 years of progressive information technology experience with full application development life cycle and systems integration experience

Demonstrated experience leading and mentoring teams of developers

Proven experience with AI-assisted development tools, particularly Git Hub Copilot, and ability to train teams on effective AI pair programming techniques

Hands-on experience designing, developing, and deploying AI agents using agent orchestration platforms

Working knowledge of Large Language Models (LLMs), prompt engineering, and integrating AI APIs

Experience building conversational interfaces, chatbots, or intelligent automation solutions that enhance user experiences

Good application security knowledge with demonstrated experience identifying and remediating security vulnerabilities (OWASP Top 10, SQL injection, XSS, CSRF, authentication/authorization flaws)

Hands-on experience with security scanning tools (e.g., Sonar Qube, Checkmarx, Snyk, Veracode) and implementing security fixes

Understanding of secure SDLC practices, threat modeling, and security testing methodologies

Expert-level knowledge of Java and Spring Boot

Strong experience with Microservices and API Development

Advanced understanding and hands-on experience with front-end development, particularly React and Web Accessibility

Containerization experience with Docker and Kubernetes

Advanced overall understanding of Web applications and server technologies

Working experience with middleware technologies, web and web hosting technologies

Experience with Kafka

Proficiency with SOAP/XML, REST/JSON

Experience with Unit testing tools (e.g., JUnit, Mockito, RESTAssured)

Hands-on experience using Dev Ops tools (Bit Bucket, CDD, Jenkins)

Understanding of JavaScript and JQuery

Ability and desire to lead with excellent communication skills

Special…