• Lead Java Engineer, Backend Development

    Raymond James Financial, Inc. (St. Petersburg, FL)


    This position follows our hybrid-friendly schedule, balancing flexibility with collaboration. In-office expectations are 2–3 days per week, averaging 10–12 days per month in our St. Petersburg, FL Corporate Office.

    Responsibilities:

    + Lead by example as a hands-on engineer, writing production-grade Java code and driving engineering best practices.

    + Design and develop modern Spring Boot and Spring Batch services that transform, validate, and orchestrate data pipelines.

    + Build upstream services that integrate with enterprise document composition systems (OpenText Exstream, JasperSoft, MessagePoint).

    + Reverse-engineer legacy .NET workflows and re-architect them into scalable, maintainable Java-based solutions.

    + Develop and maintain RESTful APIs that support data ingestion, document creation requests, archival processes, and document retrieval.

    + Engineer high-throughput data-processing pipelines capable of handling diverse file formats (fixed-width, Tandem, CSV, XML).

    + Contribute to the team’s longer-term shift from VM-based deployments toward microservice- and Kubernetes-ready architectures.

    + Apply generative AI tools to improve developer productivity and integrate AI-driven classification/validation into document workflows.

    + Implement robust logging, monitoring, and observability using Splunk, Datadog, and Dynatrace.

    + Collaborate with business analysts, partner development teams, and enterprise architects in an Agile environment.

    + Contribute to technical strategy, participate in design reviews, and support limited Tier-3 production troubleshooting.

    Skills & Qualifications:

    + Deep, hands-on expertise with Java, Spring Boot, and Spring Batch.

    + Strong experience modernizing legacy systems and re-engineering complex workflows.

    + Proficiency in data transformation and processing of fixed-width, CSV, XML, and similar structured data formats.

    + Experience building high-volume data pipelines.

    + Solid understanding of RESTful API design, integration patterns, and service-to-service communication.

    + Experience using monitoring and observability tools (Splunk, Datadog, Dynatrace).

    + Exposure to generative AI tools (GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini) for coding, classification, or enrichment.

    + Background in financial services or regulated industries is a strong plus.

    + Strong grasp of Agile practices and CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins).

    + Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills, especially in modernization environments.

    Preferred Qualifications:

    + Familiarity with enterprise composition/ECM tools (OpenText Exstream, MessagePoint, JasperSoft).

    + Experience with archival systems (e.g., Mobius) or similar document/records repositories.

    + Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).

    + Experience with DevOps tools (Jenkins, Git, Terraform, GitHub Actions).

    + Proven ability to influence architectural direction and lead technical initiatives.