Services Engineering Lead (IC) – Digital Engineering

Position Summary

The Services Engineering Lead (IC) is a hands-on individual contributor responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of backend services, APIs, and distributed systems for Digital Engineering.

This role is delivery-first: the incoming lead fully integrates as an IC into the services codebase and ships production work directly, using deep technical expertise in Java-based microservices, container orchestration, and modern integration patterns.

They operate as a lead of AI coding agents — decomposing work, directing, reviewing, and integrating the output of agentic tooling to multiply their own throughput and complete the bulk of delivery.

In addition, partial bandwidth is allocated to leading a thin near-shore offshore team and supervising the work they produce.

The role architects shared components and standards across all RCG brands, maintains accountability for the overall engineering health of their product area, participates in Agile ceremonies, and collaborates across all technology layers.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Hands-On Technical Delivery & Leadership

• Personally deliver production backend services and APIs as the primary mode of work
• .Architect, design, and implement scalable microservices and distributed systems for cloud and on-premise deployment
• .Create technical design specifications and translate high-level architecture into working software and documentation
• .Evaluate new technologies and practices for potential use by the engineering organization
• .Author and evangelize engineering standards and best practices across teams
• .Design and develop DevOps best practices for the services layer

.
AI-Augmented Individual Contributio

• n Operate as a lead of AI agents: plan, decompose, and delegate implementation tasks to AI coding agents, then review, correct, and integrate their output to completio
• n.Use agentic tooling to multiply personal delivery throughput across microservices, integrations, and infrastructure-as-code wor
• k.Apply strong engineering judgment to validate AI-generated code against architecture, security, performance, and quality standards before it ship
• s.Establish effective prompting, context-engineering, and verification patterns so AI-driven work remains correct, maintainable, and production-read
• y.Own end-to-end accountability for all delivered work regardless of whether it originated from the lead directly, an AI agent, or the supervised tea

m.
Services Development & Implementati

• on Lead design and development of Java/Spring Boot microservices and systems integratio
• ns.Architect APIs using GraphQL and modern integration patter
• ns.Build and support event-driven architectures using Kafka and messaging patter
• ns.Implement reactive programming patterns (WebFlux, Project Reactor) and non-blocking I
• /O.Manage container orchestration using Docker and Kubernetes with Kustomi
• ze.Design and maintain GitOps workflows and CI/CD pipeline architecture using Argo
• CD.Design and operate Couchbase and NoSQL database solutions for high-performance, distributed data acce
• ss.Work with relational databases and stored procedures as need

ed.
Quality & Test

• ing Participate in testing and certification proces
• ses.Monitor system and application performance; perform predictive maintena
• nce.Ensure systems are stable and performing per S
• LAs.Maintain high standards for code quality, reliability, and secur

ity.
Thin Near/Offshore Team Supervision (Partial Bandwi

• dth) With partial bandwidth, lead a thin near-shore offshore team and supervise the work they del
• iver.Direct, review, and integrate team contributions; conduct code reviews to drive engineering best pract
• ices.Guide the team in distributed system design, microservice patterns, and reactive program
• ming.Set clear, well-scoped tasks and verify completion to standard across the distributed
• team.Collaborate with product, design, and delivery teams; act as technical liaison to business stakehol

ders.
Product-Level Engineering Over

• sight Participate actively in Agile ceremonies (sprint planning, standups, retrospectives, backlog refinement) to ensure overall engineering progress aligns with roadmaps and time
• lines.Ensure that the team is meeting product owner goals and business prior
• ities.Maintain awareness of engineering health across all technology layers of the product — not just ser
• vices.Identify cross-layer risks, dependencies, and blockers; escalate proact
• ively.Know when to engage subject matter experts for other technology layers (iOS, Android, Web, AEM, React Native) and facilitate collaboration to resolve cross-cutting con
• cerns.Ensure that backend services, APIs, and integrations support the needs of all client platforms cl

eanly.
Innovation & Continuous Le

• arning Stay current with backend, distributed systems, and cloud-native techno
• logies.Create archetypes of new technologies and techniques for others to learn from, including AI-assisted engineering wor
• kflows.Drive adoption of modern patterns and tools across the services

layer.
Required Skills & Exp

• erience 7 years of software development/engineering exp
• erience.2 years in a lead or technical leadersh
• ip role.Strong hands-on experience with Java, Spring Boot, and microservice architecture and design p
• atterns.Experience with Maven-based Spring/Spring Boot (reactive programming
• a plus).Proficiency with Docker/containers and Kubernetes with Ku
• stomize.Experience with GitOps workflows and
• Argo CD.Experience with Kafka and event-driven archi
• tecture.Experience with Couchbase or other NoSQL da
• tabases.Experience with GraphQL and API
• design.Experience building customer-facing, large-scale distributed
• systems.Strong understanding of distributed systems, eventual consistency, and event-driven archi
• tecture.Hands-on, delivery-first mindset — primary value is shipping production code d
• irectly.Demonstrated ability (or strong aptitude) to use AI coding agents to plan, generate, review, and integrate work at high thr
• oughput.Strong communication skills and ability to work with senior leadership and cross-functiona
• l teams.Proficiency with Agile methodologies and SDLC best practices as defined by Royal Caribbea
• n Group.Strong end-to-end accountability and a track record of taking delivery fully to com
• pletion.Clear ownership mindset — not someone who leaves delivery responsibility with another organ
• ization.Experience supervising a thin near/offshore team with partial bandwidth and driving work through closure across distribute
• d teams.Scope control and man

agement.
Desire

• d Skills Experience with reactive programming (WebFlux, Project Reactor) and non-bloc
• king I/O.Experience with API gateway architecture (Apigee or equ
• ivalent).Experience with NoSQL and relational databases and stored procedur
• e design.Experience with vendor oversight and third-party partner ma
• nagement.Familiarity with both web and mobile solution dev
• elopment.Experience with AI-assisted development tooling (coding agents, LLM-based code generation and