IT Software Engineer 5 (Lead Software Engineer – AI Systems, Architecture & Developer Experience)

Role: IT SoftwareEngineer 5 (Lead Software Engineer – AI Systems, Architecture & DeveloperExperience)

Location: Peoria, IL and/or Chicago office (Chicagopreferred) - Hybrid; must go in office 2 days a week

Duration: 12 Months,possibility to be extended

Exp: 10-12 Years not more than 15 yrs

 
Description: We are seeking a visionary LeadSoftware Engineer to architect and deliver next-generation software platformsdriven by Artificial Intelligence and Agentic workflows. In this seniorleadership role, you will bridge the gap between core full-stack applicationdevelopment and cutting-edge Large Language Model (LLM) integration. You willwork with several high-performing engineering teams, championing the adoptionof AI coding assistants to radically accelerate our internal developer velocitywhile designing reliable, production-grade AI systems for our customers.

 Position’s Contributions to Work Group: TechnicalArchitecture & AI Integration

-        Design and orchestrate multi-agent workflows andstateful AI systems using modern frameworks like LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen,or CrewAI.

-        Integrate foundation models (e.g., AnthropicClaude, OpenAI GPT, and Google Gemini) via secure API gateways, managing tokenlimits, costs, and rate-limiting.

-        Architect data models optimized for AI-nativestructures, integrating relational databases with vector databases for semanticsearch and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

-        Implement robust white-box testing andcontinuous evaluation metrics to monitor AI outputs for factual correctness,hallucinations, and safety compliance.

-        Champion secure, reliable, and scalable softwaresolutions through architectural leadership, risk management, and continuousimprovement of engineering practices.

 Typical task breakdown:

Technical Leadership & Workflow Optimization:

·        Mentor and scale an engineering team,establishing engineering standards, best practices and architectural governancefor secure coding, continuous integration, and cloud-native deployment.

·        Drive AI-assisted engineering velocity byintegrating next-gen development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf)into the team's daily Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

·        Establish governance policies and coachdevelopers on the responsible use of AI, focusing on input data sensitivity,license compliance, and security guardrails.

·        Evaluate existing systems, services, APIs, anddata models to identify opportunities for modernization, scalability, andperformance improvements.

Influence Across Teams & Champion DeveloperExperience:

•        Facilitate technical leadership forums withProduct Owners, Technical Leads, Architects, and Engineering Managers.

•        Drive conversations around architecture,engineering health, technical debt, AI adoption, and continuous improvement.

•        Mentor engineers and technical leaders on systemdesign, software architecture, and engineering excellence.

•        Foster collaborative decision-making througharchitecture reviews, RFCs, and technical discussions.

•        Promote self-service engineering capabilitiesand platform enablement.

•        Drive automation initiatives that improveproductivity and software quality.

 Interaction with team:

•        Significant interaction required with Scrumteam. Interaction during all scrum ceremonies such as Daily Standups, SprintPlanning, Grooming, Retro, Demo etc. Also need to interact with team for PRReviews, also need to engage with other teams as needed.

 
Education & Experience Required:

•        Bachelor’s degree in Computer science orElectrical engineering or related field, Plus 10+ years exp

•        Master Degree plus 8+ years exp

Core Software Engineering

•        Backend Systems: Deep proficiency in backend environments,microservices architectures, and API design using Java.

•        Cloud & DevOps: Extensive experience withcontainerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and public cloud infrastructure like AWS

•        AI & LLM Infrastructure

•        Orchestration & Tooling: Hands-on experiencewith production-level AI agents, prompt engineering, and advanced Agentic PDLCpatterns.

•        Vector Databases: Practical knowledge of vectortechnologies such as Pinecone, Milvus, Chroma, or pgvector.

•        AI Tool Fluency: Demonstrated mastery of AIcoding assistants and a firm understanding of Model Context Protocol (MCP) tomediate agent connections with external databases.

 Technical Skills:

·        8+ years of professional software engineeringexperience and 2+ years in a technical leadership role.

·        Proven experience designing and deliveringlarge-scale distributed systems.

·        Strong expertise in software architecture, APIs,microservices, cloud-native applications, and modern engineering practices.

·        Experience influencing multiple engineeringteams and leading organization-wide technical initiatives.

·        Strong communication, collaboration, andstakeholder management skills.

·        Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers anddrive technical excellence.

·        Experience with Generative AI, AI agents,LLM-powered applications, or intelligent automation platforms.

·        Experience with AI development tools, codingassistants, and modern developer productivity platforms.

Experience Requirements

Overall Experience

·        10+ years of experience with a Bachelor's degree.

·        With a Master's degree, the requirement can bereduced to 8+ years.

·        Candidates with significantly more experience areacceptable; the hiring manager explicitly confirmed that more experience isfine/preferred.

Leadership

·        2+ years of technicalleadership experience required.

·        The role is primarily a technical leadershipposition, with hands-on technical involvement.

·        Leadership experience does not necessarily needto come from formal people management.

Java Development – Critical Requirement

A strong Java development background is required.

The hiring manager clarified that candidates should not simply bestrong AI/GenAI leaders with limited Java exposure.

The individual needs to:

·        Understand the existing Java codebase.

·        Be able to evaluate AI-generated recommendationsinvolving Java.

·        Determine whether AI-generated recommendations aretechnically appropriate.

·        Make or drive the necessary changes.

·        Understand the implications of changes to the Javacodebase.

·        Be comfortable working with Java repositorieshosted in GitHub.

A candidate who is highly experienced in AI but primarily codes in Pythonor another language without strong Java knowledge would likely not be suitable.

GenAI / AI Experience

Strong practical experience with Generative AI is a majorrequirement.

The role requires experience with areas such as:

·        Generative AI

·        AI agents

·        LLM-powered applications

·        Intelligent automation platforms

·        AI development tools

·        AI coding assistants

·        Modern developer productivity platforms

The hiring manager indicated that approximately 2 years ofproduction AI experience is expected.

The candidate should have practical experience using and applying AI,rather than simply having theoretical knowledge.