Full Stack Lead - Java/React.js

Full-Stack Lead

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING :

• Owning delivery day-to-day : tracking what is in progress, what is blocked, and what is about to slip.
• Writing and reviewing production code across the stack Java and Spring Boot on the backend, React and Next.js on the frontend.
• Running lightweight rituals (standups, code reviews, retros) not for ceremony, but to keep the team calibrated.
• Being the first point of escalation when something breaks, then working out what happened and making sure it does not happen again.
• Helping shape the architecture of Project Swifty data modelling, service boundaries, how we build for scale from the start rather than retrofitting it later.
• Championing spec-driven development across the team making sure features are properly specified before anyone writes a line of code, which means clear acceptance criteria, agreed API contracts, and documented behaviour, not just a ticket with a title.
• Documenting decisions so the next person understands why things are the way they are.
• Setting and holding the quality bar for the team not just whether code works, but whether it is tested, observable, and maintainable by the next person who touches it.
• Giving and receiving direct feedback, including telling someone their PR is not good enough, and hearing the same about your own work.

MUST HAVE :

• 8+ years of full-stack engineering, with at least a year or two of informally or formally leading a small team.
• Strong Java and Spring Boot; you do not need to know every corner of the framework, but you should be able to debug unfamiliar code without needing hand-holding.
• Solid JavaScript and React experience; ideally you have shipped something with Next.js.
• Comfortable with REST API design, MongoDB, and thinking about how data models evolve over time.
• You have used Grafana or Graphite and know what to look at when something goes wrong in production.
• You can make a call under uncertainty; when requirements are incomplete, you state your assumptions, move forward, and flag what you are guessing at.
• Strong communicator in writing and in conversation; remote teams live or die by how well people document their thinking, so you are comfortable writing specs and expect the same from the people around you.
• A genuine quality mindset you treat testing as part of shipping, not something that happens after, and you expect the same from the people you lead.
• Brutally honest : about your own mistakes, about the team's mistakes, and about what needs to change.

GOOD TO HAVE :

• TypeScript, TanStack Query, Redux, or Cypress.
• Experience contributing to greenfield architecture decisions, not just feature work on an existing codebase.
• Worked across time zones with engineers in Europe or the US.