Lead AI Developer

Role: Lead AI Developer
Location: Southlake, TX (Hybrid – 4 Days onsite in every week)
Duration: 12 Months

Job Description:
At Client, you’re empowered to make an impact on your career. Here, innovative thought meets creative problem solving, helping us “challenge the status quo” and transform the finance industry together.
Join us for significant technical transformation in Broker-Dealer Systems and the modernization of our core technology infrastructure. As a Senior AI Developer Tech Lead, this role will be a leader in AI focused workflows across the System Development Life Cycle. You’ll work at the intersection of cutting-edge AI technology and complex financial domains, building intelligent systems that directly impact millions of people’s retirement security.

Required Qualifications
Demonstrated exposure to, or hands-on experience with, GenAI coding assistants used across day-to-day engineering workflows in the SDLC—implementation, refactoring, unit testing, regression support, code reviews, scripting/automation, troubleshooting, and documentation—while applying engineering judgment and validation. Practical familiarity with tools such as GitHub Copilot or Claude Code is expected.
Uses AI assistance for common dev tasks (code suggestions, test generation, review support, automation scripts, troubleshooting) with clear ownership for correctness and quality.
Applies GenAI in ways that reduce context switching and accelerate delivery across typical workflows (not limited to writing new code).
Demonstrated experience acting as Tech Lead or Team lead and grooming/mentoring junior developers.
Demonstrates practical familiarity with GitHub Copilot and/or Claude Code within IDE/CLI-style workflows.
Demonstrated experience designing & architecting systems from Scratch in a green field environment.
Working knowledge of agentic workflows, spec-driven development (translating low-level design artifacts such as class structures, API contracts, and data models into structured specs that guide AI-assisted implementation), and custom instructions and prompt engineering, with the ability to establish team-level practices for effective AI-assisted development.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
Experience:
12+ years of professional software engineering experience in actively developing large scale software using: Java, Spring framework, cloud development, and Web Services supporting high volume transactions in a highly available environment.
2+ years of hands-on experience with AI/ML implementation and production deployment
6+ years of experience working with containers and microservices in the cloud.
6+ years of experience in cloud deployment in a continuous integration, and continuous delivery model (CI/CD).
5+ years of experience with Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF), or AWS or GCP.
5+ years’ experience working with databases like MongoDB, Aerospike, and/or PostgreSQL.
2+ years Prior experience in IT Transformations and system modernization initiatives from legacy to distributed platforms, i.e., Mainframe Cobol apps/DB2 to Java apps/SQL or MongoDB
Hands-on experience with Large Language Models (e.g., GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, PaLM)
Domain Expertise: Understanding of broker-dealer capabilities and operations.
Communication: Excellent communication skills; proven ability to communicate and lead other engineers in a collaborative environment
Execution Focus: Collaborative mindset coupled with a bias for action to effectively engage with fellow developers, Architects, and adjacent teams, etc.

Preferred Qualifications:
• Master’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, related degree, OR related practical experience
• Good knowledge of messaging technologies (Rabbit MQ, Kafka, or equivalent)
• Experience in Financial Services industry
• Experience in Test Driven Development, QA Automation and Quality mindset and behaviors
• Proficient in developing Visio diagrams, architectural and design documentations, functional and technical specifications, automated test process
• Willingness to learn all aspects of tech stack and document
• Ability to research and document production and test environments along with architecture and design work
• Knowledge of Agile methodology and experience in an Agile working environment
• Experience with the Atlassian tool stack (JIRA and Confluence) 
 
At SPECTRAFORCE, we are committed to maintaining a workplace that ensures fair compensation and wage transparency in adherence with all applicable state and local laws.This position's pay range is $80.00/hr - $85.00/hr.