Backend Java Developer (SME)

District Partners is supporting a specialized consulting group leading a major technology modernization initiative for a federal agency. This is a mission-critical environment where backend engineering directly impacts operations and system reliability at scale. The work is fast-paced, deeply technical, and spans distributed systems, microservices, cloud-native patterns, and high-volume data processing.

Engineers who excel here typically bring a strong academic grounding from accredited US universities and professional experience within well-known federal contracting or enterprise engineering environments (Leidos, SAIC, CACI, BAE, Boeing, RTX, etc.). The expectations are high, collaboration is tight, and the problems are complex.

What You'll Do:

Lead design and development of enterprise-scale, data-driven backend applications

Build, optimize, and maintain microservices and RESTful APIs using modern Spring frameworks

Partner with architects, data engineers, and data scientists to deliver end-to-end solutions

Refactor legacy components, strengthen performance, and harden system reliability

Document workflows, user stories, and technical decisions

Mentor junior developers and support engineering best practices

Participate in design reviews, solutioning sessions, and milestone planning What You'll Have:

12+ years' experience with a BS degree, or senior-level equivalent (20+ HS, 18+ AA, 9+ MS, 7+ PhD)

Strong Java 8+ development experience; OOP fundamentals; XML/JSON

Spring Framework (Microservices, REST APIs), Hibernate ORM

Relational DB experience: Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL; advanced SQL skills

Application servers: Tomcat, WebLogic, WildFly, JBoss

Containers: Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift

AWS (EC2, RDS, S3) or similar cloud experience

Build & source control: Maven, Gradle, Bamboo, Git/Bitbucket

Distributed systems exposure: Hadoop, Spark, Impala, Elasticsearch, Solr, MySQL

NoSQL: MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB

CI/CD tools: Jenkins, Bamboo

Unix/Linux scripting

Agile/Scrum delivery experience; Jira/Confluence; IDEs such as Eclipse, Jupyter, Zeppelin

This program offers long-term stability, complex engineering challenges, and immediate openings for senior-level backend developers who can operate independently and lead from the front.

Location: Ashburn, VA (Onsite 5 days a week for the first year; hybrid available thereafter)

Compensation: $70/hr-$75/hr, depending on experience (1099/C2C)

Duration: Multi-year federal modernization program

Clearance: Must be able to obtain a Public Trust

Citizenship: US Citizen

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