Web Services Optimization Lead

Washington, D.C. 20250 Full Time, Senior Level About The Role The Web Services Optimization Lead will own the end to end strategy, design, and execution of initiatives that rationalize, modernize, and secure our organization's suite of web services. You will work closely with architecture, security, product, and engineering teams to transform complex, redundant, or convoluted APIs and micro services into a streamlined, high performance, and maintainable portfolio that supports current and future business needs. Key Responsibilities # Responsibility 1 Assess & Rationalize Conduct comprehensive inventories and health checks of existing web services, identifying duplication, obsolete components, and performance bottlenecks. 2 Modernization Roadmap Develop and maintain a phased modernization plan (refactor, re platform, retire, or replace) aligned with business priorities and technology standards. 3 Performance & Scalability Lead the redesign of services to improve latency, throughput, and resource utilization using caching, asynchronous processing, load balancing, and cloud native patterns. 4 Security Hardening Embed security best practices (OWASP, Zero Trust, API gateway policies, authentication/authorization standards) into every stage of the service lifecycle. 5 Governance & Standards Define and enforce architectural guidelines, coding standards, versioning policies, and documentation requirements for all web services. 6 Automation & CI/CD Champion automated testing, static analysis, and continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelines to ensure reliable, repeatable deployments. 7 Collaboration & Stakeholder Management Partner with product owners, data engineers, security officers, and senior leadership to communicate trade offs, progress, and outcomes. 8 Mentorship & Leadership Coach senior engineers and cross functional teams on service design, refactoring techniques, and performance tuning. 9 Metrics & Reporting Establish KPIs (e.g., mean time to recovery, error rates, request latency) and provide regular status reports and dashboards to senior management. 10 Innovation Stay current with emerging web service technologies (gRPC, GraphQL, Service Meshes, serverless) and evaluate their fit for our ecosystem. Required Qualifications Requirement Detail Experience 8+ years of hands on software development and architecture experience with large scale web services/APIs. Minimum 4 years leading modernization or rationalization programs in a complex enterprise environment. Technical Expertise Strong proficiency in RESTful APIs, SOAP, GraphQL, gRPC. Deep knowledge of micro service patterns, service mesh (e.g., Istio, Linkerd), and API gateways (e.g., Kong, Apigee). Proficient in at least one major programming language (Java, C#, Go, Node.js, or Python). Experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP). Performance & Security Proven track record improving latency, throughput, and scalability; solid understanding of security frameworks (OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, TLS, OWASP Top 10). Leadership Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction, drive cross functional initiatives, and mentor senior engineers. Analytical Skills Strong data driven problem solving ability-able to interpret logs, tracing, and monitoring data to pinpoint inefficiencies. Communication Excellent verbal and written communication; able to translate technical concepts for both technical and non technical stakeholders. Education Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (Master's preferred). Preferred Qualifications • Experience modernizing legacy monoliths to micro service architectures. • Certifications such as AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), or Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). • Familiarity with DevSecOps tooling (Snyk, SonarQube, HashiCorp Vault). • Experience in regulated environments (FedRAMP, FISMA, HIPAA, PCI DSS). Core Skills & Competencies Category Examples Architectural Design Service decomposition, API versioning, contract first design. Performance Engineering Profiling, load testing (JMeter, Locust), caching strategies (Redis, CDN). Security Threat modeling, secure coding, API threat protection, audit compliance. Automation CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps), infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation). Collaboration Tools Jira/Confluence, Git, Slack/Teams, collaboration with product & security teams. Leadership Influencing without authority, conflict resolution, stakeholder alignment.