Entry Level Java Software Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

Job Description
Job Title: Software Engineer Level 4 (Java Backend Developer)
Location: Chicago, IL OR Peoria, IL (Hybrid _ 2-3 days onsite)
Duration: 12 months potential to be extended
Travel: Minimal (if any, within Chicago/Peoria)
Role Overview
Focus: Backend API development supporting:
• Digital applications
• Dealer applications
• Customer applications
Primary Responsibility: Develop, maintain, enhance, and support backend services
Key Technical Requirements:
Experience:
• Minimum 8+ years in Java
• At least 1+ year in AWS
Core Skills:
• Backend development (strong emphasis)
• Java (latest versions preferred; Java 21 acceptable, Java 25 ideal)
• AWS services (extensively used)
Testing Tools:
• Preferred: Cucumber, Selenium
• Performance Testing: JMeter
• Postman not preferred (team uses alternative tools)
Day-to-Day Responsibilities
Participate in Scrum ceremonies:
• Daily stand-ups
• Sprint activities
Work from Azure DevOps Scrum board
Balance of work:
• ~70% new development
• ~30% maintenance/support
Occasional involvement in high-level design
Candidate Profile Expectations
• Strong backend development background (critical)
• Hands-on coding experience preferred over architecture-heavy profiles
• Ability to:
1.Collaborate within and across teams
2.Contribute to design discussions when needed
• Resume expectations:
1.Clear project history with proper timelines
2.Explanation required for any employment gaps
Project Scope & Domain
• Work spans multiple enterprise domains, including:
1.User entitlement services
2.Asset management
3.Other evolving enterprise areas
• Emphasis on diverse backend service development, not limited to one domain
The main function of a software engineer is to apply the principles of computer science and mathematical analysis to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and systems that make computers work.
A typical software engineer researches, designs, develops and tests operating systems-level software, compilers, and network distribution software for medical, industrial, military, communications, aerospace, business, scientific and general computing applications.
Job Responsibilities:
• Review and approve the modification of existing databases and database management systems. Instruct staff to write and code logical and physical database descriptions and specify identifiers of database to management system.
• Direct database development and approve project scope and limitations. Review project requests describing database user needs to estimate time and cost required to accomplish project.
• Plan, coordinate, and implement security measures to safeguard information in computer files against accidental or unauthorized damage, modification or disclosure.
• Approve, schedule, plan and supervise the installation and testing of new products and improvements to computer systems. Develop standards and guidelines to guide the use and acquisition of software and to protect vulnerable information.
Skills:
• Verbal and written communication skills, problem solving skills, customer service and interpersonal skills.
• Expert ability to work independently and manage one's time. Expert mentoring skills necessary to provide support and constructive performance feedback.
• Expert knowledge of the full software development lifecycle: from business/systems analysis, through requirements gathering and functional specification authoring, to development, testing and delivery. Expert ability to troubleshoot issues and make system changes as needed to resolve issue. Expert knowledge of computer hardware and software.
• Knowledge of computer development software as it relates to systems, such as SQL, VisualBasic, etc.
Education/Experience:
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering or relevant field required. 8+ years' experience required.
Typical task breakdown:
• Work as part of Agile team and participate in Scrum activities.
• Competent to perform all programming, development, integration and system administration assignments without close supervision.
• Designs, codes, tests, and debugs programs of high complexity.
• Configuration or customization of purchased software solutions with high complexity.
• Provides project management, programming, systems, and/or system administration leadership, guidance, and assistance to other team members.
• Works on more complex application/technical problem identification and resolution, including responding to off-shift and weekend support calls.
• Works independently on complex processes and modules that may be used by one or more programs, systems or in support of infrastructure component change management.
• Develops major system modules, programs or infrastructure released based on requirements gathered from system customers.
• Performs integrated testing and customer acceptance testing of system components that requires careful planning and execution to ensure timely, quality results
• Fully knowledgeable of programming languages appropriate to the platform supported, program design and specification development, programming logic, logic diagrams, system analysis techniques, testing, debugging, documentation standards, filedesign, storage and internal systems;
• Performs integration tasks for in-house developed systems and/or purchased hardware and software solutions. Assists customers with documentation, training and usability efforts.
Interaction with team:
• Significant interaction required with Scrum team. Interaction during all scrum ceremonies such as Daily Standups, Sprint Planning, Grooming, Retro, Demo etc. Also need to interact with team for PR Reviews, also need to engage with other teams as needed.
Work environment:
• Strong collaboration required.
Education & Experience Required:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer science or Electrical engineering or related field, Plus 8+ years exp
- Master Degree plus 6+ years exp.
Technical Skills:
• 8+ years or more of software development experience or at least 6 years of experience with master's degree in computer science or related field.
• 8+ years or more of experience in designing and developing software applications in Java or at least 6 years of experience in Java with master's degree in computer science or related field.
• At least 3 years of experience developing in AWS: cloud formation templates, deploying ECS clusters, Lambda, Fargate, Amazon Elastic Search, S3. Strong understanding of IAM roles and policies.
Proven experience in following,
• Designing, developing, deploying and maintaining software at scale.
• 3 years of experience building and developing with Cloud Technologies (such as AWS, Azure, GCP) o Developing software applications using relational and Nosql databases.
• Application architectural patterns, such as MVC, Microservices, Event-driven, etc.
• Deploying software using CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, Azure Devops etc.
• Deploying and maintaining software using public clouds such as AWS or Azure.
• Working within an Agile framework (ideally Scrum)
Strong understanding and/or experience in some of the following,
• Batch or stream processing systems such as AWS SQS, AWS SNS, Kinesis.
• Experience designing well-defined Restful APIs
• Hands on experience with API tools such as Swagger, Postman and Assertible
• Test driven development and behavior driven development.
• Hands on experience with testing tools such as Selenium and Cucumber and their integration into CI/CD pipelines.
• Datastores such as DynamoDB, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Elasticsearch, MySQL, Oracle.
• Must demonstrate solid knowledge of computer science fundamentals like data structures and algorithms.
Soft Skills (Required):
• Ability to work under pressure and within time constraints.
• Passion for technology and an eagerness to contribute to a team-oriented environment.
Disqualifiers/Red Flags:
• Resume shows a lot of front-end and no back end exp, they will not qualify.
-If resume does not have the candidate's current location of residence, they will be DQ.
-If candidate does not currently reside in the local area but open to relocate on their dime, that needs to be clear on the resume.
Skill Set
Java, Java Back-end, API. AWS, S3, ECS, Jmeter, Cucumber, Selenium, IAM, Lambda, Cloud Formation, NoSQL