Lead Full Stack Java Developer (Hybrid - Silver Spring, Maryland)

Remote Hybrid - 80% remote (1 day in office per week) for long-term four-year project with our Federal Government customer.

*** DIRECT HIRE ONLY. NO Corp to Corp or 1099 ***

This position REQUIRES the candidate to be either a U.S. Citizen, or green card holder having lived in the U.S. continuously for more than 5 years. (no H1B or H4 visa).

DO NOT apply if you are not a U.S. Citizen or GC holder - We CANNOT hire you for this position. (This is a requirement of the Federal Government client for this contract)

Vanguard DevOps is seeking an experienced, senior, full-stack Java Developer / Application Architect, to lead the Architecture and Development of a brand new, green-field web application and APIs from the ground up.

Your job will be to design and architect the full-stack solution utilizing the very latest in modern, cloud native, and AI driven best practices for web application development. The architecture should utilize React and Tailwind CSS for the front-end, Java and Spring for the back-end services, and PostgreSQL in Google Cloud’s Cloud SQL.

Once your proposed application architecture is approved, you will serve as the lead back-end developer, working in collaboration with the front-end React team and one additional back-end developer to develop and deploy the application, restful APIs, and data pipelines.

The entire stack will run in Google Cloud, utilizing GCP Cloud Build, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and Google Cloud SQL managed PostgreSQL database and other GCP services.

Requirements:

Must be a U.S. Citizen or green card holder having lived in the U.S. continuously for more than 5 years. (no H1B or H4 visa)

Key Responsibilities:

Lead the application architecture design and technical roadmap for a new web application, REST APIs, and data pipeline

Design, develop, and maintain secure and scalable backend services using Java, Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Spring Security

Design, Implement and Document RESTful APIs using OpenAPI specifications and best practices for clear documentation and efficient communication.

Design and implement secure authentication and authorization for the web application, RESTful APIs, and data pipelines - using industry best practices such as API Gateways, API Keys, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), JWT, etc.

Collaborate with the front-end team to integrate UI components with backend services.

Support deployments on the Google Cloud Platform, leveraging GCP services such as Cloud Build for CI/CD, PostgreSQL in Cloud SQL, and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues, and collaborate with system administrators, DevOps engineers, and government stakeholders

Develop and maintain high-quality technical documentation, including design specifications, deployment guides, and support manuals

Write clean, maintainable, and well-documented code following best practices and coding standards.

Participate in code reviews, providing constructive feedback, and ensuring code quality.

Required Skills & Experience:

Must have a strong understanding of application architecture design patterns and components such as monolith, microservices, event driven, message brokers, pub/sub, etc,

Must have proven previous experience leading the architecture and design of modern web applications and Restful APIs utilizing a modern native tech stack.

Very Strong backend development experience (5+ years) with Java, including in-depth knowledge of Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Spring Security.

Strong understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) principles and design patterns.

Strong knowledge and experience with IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, including the use of AI coding agents and tools (ideally Gemini Code assist, and Gemini Cloud assist)

Strong understanding of web application security, and best practices for prevention of security vulnerabilities such as OWASP Top 10, SQL Injection, Cross Site Scripting, CSRF, etc.

Strong understanding of data validation and sanitization best practices using frameworks such as hibernate validator

Strong understanding and experience with authentication and authorization for web applications, APIs, and data pipelines - OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), JWT

Strong experience with Apache Tomcat

Experience with Maven and/or Gradle for building and pac 2.0kaging Java web apps

Experience deploying and managing applications on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Experience with Apache Tomcat

Understanding of agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban).

Database

Experience with PostgreSQL, preferably in GCP CloudSQL.

Strong experience with integrating relational databases (PostgreSQL) and ORM frameworks (e.g., Hibernate, JPA, Spring Data JPA).

Experience with automated database schema change versioning with Liquibase or similar tool.

Experience developing data pipelines to ingest, process, validate, and store structured and unstructured data in relational databases, data lakes, and/or lake houses.

RESTful APIs

Strong experience with RESTful API design and implementation, including strong familiarity with OpenAPI for API documentation and specification.

Strong understanding and experience with authentication and authorization for APIs, and data pipelines using best practices – API Gateways, API Keys, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), JWT, etc.

Experience with API validation and testing tools such as Postman, ReadyAPI, Swagger Validator, OpenAPI Validation

Automated CI/CD Pipelines

Strong experience with GitHub and Git version control systems.

Strong CI/CD pipeline skills and proven experience creating pipelines and jobs using GitHub actions to deploy into GKE clusters. (Additional experience with GCP Cloud Build is a plus)

Strong understanding and proven experience with containerization with Docker

Strong understanding and proven experience deploying applications into Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Strong understanding and proven experience implementing GitOps pattern using Google Cloud best practices to automate application deployments into Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) using tools such as Argo CD or Flux CD

Strong understanding and proven experience with Terraform to version and automate infrastructure provisioning.

Desired Qualifications:

Google Cloud Certification(s) is highly desirable

Experience with Google Gemini AI coding assistants: Gemini Code Assist, & Gemini Cloud Assist

Experience with React for frontend development (3+ years)

Previous experience developing responsive and intuitive user interfaces using React, ensuring a seamless and engaging user experience.