Senior Software Engineer – Squad Lead (Java + React)

Senior Software Engineer – Squad Lead (Java + React)

About the job:

Senior Software Engineer – Squad Lead (Java + React)
Location: Trivandrum, Kerala (Full-time, in-office)
Experience: 8+ years

About the Role:

We're hiring a seasoned engineer to lead a squad of 10+ developers and QA engineers on a long-term enterprise engagement. You will own delivery end to end: understanding client requirements, shaping wireframes with our UI/UX team, securing client sign-off, and shipping production-grade software. This is a hands-on technical leadership role, not a pure management track.

What You'll Do:

Lead and mentor a cross-functional squad of 10+ engineers and QA, owning their growth, technical decisions, and delivery outcomes.
Engage directly with client stakeholders to elicit requirements, translate them into wireframes alongside the UI/UX team, and drive them to approval.
Architect and build scalable backend services in Java and Spring Boot, and modern web frontends in React.
Run agile ceremonies effectively (sprint planning, refinement, retros, demos) and use them to keep the squad focused, unblocked, and accountable.
Set and enforce engineering standards across the squad: clean code, code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, observability.
Be the technical face of the squad to the client in design discussions, trade-off conversations, and status reviews.

What You Bring:

8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with deep hands-on expertise in Java and Spring Boot (microservices, REST APIs, JPA, Spring Security) and React (hooks, state management, modern build tooling).
Proven track record of leading squads of 10+ for sustained periods, including mentoring mid and junior engineers into stronger contributors.
Strong experience working directly with clients in a product or services environment, including scope negotiation, demos, and approvals.
Comfortable collaborating with UI/UX designers to shape wireframes and validate flows before development begins.
Deep fluency in agile delivery and a pragmatic view on when to bend process to ship.
Solid grasp of cloud (AWS preferred), containers, CI/CD, and modern engineering practices.
Excellent written and spoken communication in English.

Nice to Have:

Exposure to AI-assisted development workflows (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor or similar).
Experience with event-driven systems (Kafka) and modern observability stacks.
Background working with US, UK, or UAE enterprise clients.
Candidates from Kerala preferred.