Java Developer

Job Title: Senior Java Developer
Location: Chicago, IL 60604
Duration: 1 Year
Employment Type: Contract

Required Skills

• 8 years of hands-on experience with Java (J2EE), Spring Boot, and Microservices
• Proven experience developing and supporting cloud-native applications on Microsoft Azure
• Strong expertise in distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and asynchronous processing
• Experience working in Agile and onsite/offshore delivery models

Event Streaming & Messaging – Must Have

• Extensive hands-on experience with Apache Kafka
  • Kafka Producers, Consumers, Topics, Partitions, and Consumer Groups
  • Kafka Streams and Event Processing
  • Message Ordering, Delivery Guarantees, and Scaling Strategies
  • Schema Registry and Event Versioning
• Strong experience with enterprise messaging platforms:
  • Kafka
  • Solace PubSub
  • IBM MQ
  • Azure Service Bus
  • Event Hubs
• Deep understanding of:
  • Event-Driven Architecture (EDA)
  • Publish/Subscribe Patterns
  • Event Sourcing
  • CQRS
  • Saga Pattern
  • Message Reliability and Error Handling
  • Dead Letter Queues (DLQ)
  • Event Replay and Recovery Strategies
• Experience designing and implementing high-throughput, low-latency messaging systems

API & Integration

• Strong hands-on experience with REST APIs, SOAP Services, and Event-Based Integrations
• Strong understanding of API lifecycle management and service integrations
• Mandatory API security experience:
  • OAuth 2.0
  • JWT Validation
  • Secure Service-to-Service Communication

Azure Cloud

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Azure Container Apps
• Azure Service Bus
• Azure Event Hubs
• Azure Functions
• Azure Storage
• Strong understanding of Azure networking and cloud-native architecture patterns

DevOps & Automation

• CI/CD pipelines using:
  • GitHub Actions
  • Jenkins
  • Terraform
• Strong experience integrating automated testing, security scanning, and deployment automation
• Experience provisioning Azure infrastructure using Terraform

Databases

• Azure SQL
• Cosmos DB
• PostgreSQL
• Other Azure-hosted databases
• Understanding of data consistency models and transactional patterns in distributed systems

Backend Development

• Python
• Node.js

Preferred Skills

• Confluent Platform
• Event Mesh architecture using Solace
• Domain-Driven Design (DDD)
• GraphQL
• Dynatrace
• Azure Monitor
• Log Analytics
• Linux and Shell Scripting
• TDD and BDD
• Control-M
• SFTP
• Mainframe integration patterns

Education

Required: High School diploma or equivalent
Preferred: Bachelor's degree

Overview

We are seeking a Senior Java Developer specializing in Event-Driven Architecture and Enterprise Messaging to design, develop, test, and deploy scalable cloud-native applications on Azure.

The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in asynchronous processing, event streaming, distributed systems, and enterprise messaging platforms, enabling highly resilient and scalable solutions.

The developer will design and implement event-driven microservices, messaging solutions, and cloud-native applications using Java, Spring Boot, and Azure services, while leveraging Kafka, Solace, IBM MQ, and Azure messaging technologies.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable event-driven microservices and messaging solutions
• Build, enhance, and support enterprise-grade applications utilizing Kafka, Solace, IBM MQ, and Azure messaging services
• Design event schemas, topics, queues, and integration patterns for highly distributed systems
• Ensure reliability, scalability, observability, and security of messaging platforms and integrations
• Develop and execute unit, integration, and performance testing for messaging-based solutions
• Collaborate with architects and technical leads on event-driven solution design and implementation
• Document architecture, event flows, message contracts, and operational procedures
• Support production deployments and troubleshooting of messaging infrastructure and applications
• Ensure non-functional requirements including security, performance, scalability, resiliency, and maintainability are incorporated into all solutions
• Proactively identify risks, bottlenecks, and dependencies impacting project deliverables