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First Engineer Jobs in New Jersey (NOW HIRING)

Senior Automation Engineer

Jersey City, NJ · On-site

$108K - $142K/yr

Analytical, problem-solving mindset with continuous learning and quality-first engineering habits. Key Responsibilities Design and execute functional, integration, system, regression, and automation ...

Lead Engineer, Evidence Management

Raritan, NJ · On-site +1

$105K - $138K/yr

This is primarily an Appian-first, AI-enabled, and ecosystem-oriented engineering role. The successful candidate must bring strong hands-on and strategic experience with Appian platform architecture ...

Job Summary Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is currently searching for a First Assistant Engineer for R/V Atlantis in December 2026. Reporting to the Chief Engineer and assisting with duties; is ...

Job Summary Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is currently searching for a First Assistant Engineer for R/V Atlantis in December 2026. Reporting to the Chief Engineer and assisting with duties; is ...

The ideal candidate is an AI-first developer who actively uses tools like Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code to accelerate development and help drive AI engineering best practices across the team. Key ...

Senior AI Engineer

Princeton, NJ

$109K - $150K/yr

This role is accountable for the AI-first engineering of cloud-native applications, agentic AI products, and the knowledge and context infrastructure that powers them. You will have access to the ...

Senior AI Engineer

Madison, NJ

$107K - $147K/yr

This role is accountable for the AI-first engineering of cloud-native applications, agentic AI products, and the knowledge and context infrastructure that powers them. You will have access to the ...

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Showing results 1-20

First Engineer information

See New Jersey salary details

$39.6K

$103.3K

$139.6K

How much do first engineer jobs pay per year?

As of Sep 11, 2026, the average yearly pay for first engineer in New Jersey is $103,303.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $85,300.00 and $118,300.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is the difference between First Engineer vs Mechanical Engineer?

AspectFirst EngineerMechanical Engineer
Required CredentialsBachelor's degree in engineering or related field; often requires experience in project managementBachelor's degree in mechanical engineering; may require licensure or certification
Work EnvironmentConstruction sites, industrial plants, or project sites; often involved in overseeing initial phases of projectsDesign offices, manufacturing plants, or R&D labs; focused on design, analysis, and testing
Employer & Industry UsageConstruction, oil & gas, or heavy industry; used for lead or senior roles in project initiationManufacturing, automotive, aerospace, and energy sectors; common for design and development roles

First Engineers typically oversee early project phases and require experience in project management, while Mechanical Engineers focus on design, analysis, and testing within manufacturing or R&D environments. Both roles require engineering degrees but differ in responsibilities and work settings.

How to get a first engineer job?

To secure a first engineer position, candidates should develop relevant technical skills through education or training, build a portfolio of projects, and gain practical experience via internships or entry-level roles. Strong problem-solving abilities, proficiency with engineering tools, and effective communication are also important for success in the hiring process.

What do beginner first engineers do?

Beginner first engineers typically assist with basic tasks such as troubleshooting, testing, and maintaining systems or equipment. They often work under supervision, learn industry tools and safety protocols, and focus on gaining practical experience in engineering environments.

What does a first engineer do?

A first engineer is an entry-level engineering professional responsible for assisting in design, development, and testing of engineering projects. They often perform routine tasks, follow technical instructions, and work under supervision to gain experience and develop skills in their field.

What cities in New Jersey are hiring for First Engineer jobs?

Cities in New Jersey with the most First Engineer job openings:

Infographic showing various First Engineer job openings in New Jersey as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 78% Full Time, 17% Part Time, and 4% Contract. Highlights an 85% Physical, 1% Hybrid, and 14% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $103,303 per year, or $49.7 per hour.

Senior Lead Software Engineer- Payments Tech - AI-First Developer Portal & External APIs

Jersey City, NJ • On-site

JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Finance and Insurance • 10K+ employees

Other

Posted 27 days ago


JPMorgan Chase & Co. rating

7.9

Company rating: 7.9 out of 10

Based on 500 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz


Job description

This is your chance to shape an AI-first Developer Portal—a modern “front door” where clients and their systems can discover capabilities, onboard, troubleshoot, and integrate through AI-ready workflows and high-quality external APIs. As a Senior Vice President of Software Engineering within Payments Technology, you will lead teams and remain hands‑on in building secure, stable, scalable platform capabilities that modernize the developer experience for the agentic era.

As a Senior Lead Software Engineer at JPMorgan Chase within Payments Technology, you will lead teams and remain hands‑on in building secure, stable, scalable platform capabilities that modernize the developer experience for the agentic era

Role summary

You will own the technical direction and execution for an AI-native portal experience where:

  • Core portal capabilities are designed to be consumed by agents and automation (with excellent human UX as a companion).
  • Workflows are exposed as reusable actions/tools with strong security, auditability, and operational controls.
  • External API experiences are productized to be easy to discover, evaluate, and integrate—at scale.

Job responsibilities

  • Lead the creation of an AI-first Developer Portal experience: define architecture patterns for agent-ready workflows, tool/action schemas, context assembly, and safe execution.
  • Build and operate AI-enabled support experiences (assistant + workflow automation) with contextual understanding of client/workspace state, integration progress, and troubleshooting signals.
  • Design and deliver secure external API platform capabilities: contract-first API design (OpenAPI), versioning strategy, backward compatibility, idempotency, pagination, consistent error models, and developer usability.
  • Own authentication and credential workflows for external integrations, including patterns for certificate handling, credential rotation, and secure onboarding journeys.
  • Establish engineering standards for AI + automation in production: evaluation and test strategy, release gating, telemetry, audit logging, and incident response for AI/tooling systems.
  • Remain hands‑on (~50%) through critical‑path coding, architecture reviews, code reviews, debugging, and performance/resiliency improvements.
  • Drive cross‑functional, federated delivery by partnering with API owners, security, and shared services to deliver a unified client experience despite distributed backend ownership.
  • Coach and develop engineers: set expectations for quality, delivery discipline, design rigor, and collaboration; actively grow technical talent and leadership bench.

Required qualifications, capabilities, and skills

  • Formal training or certification in software engineering concepts and 5+ years applied experience; demonstrated coaching/mentoring experience.
  • 10+ years of software engineering experience building and operating distributed systems at scale.
  • 3+ years of experience leading software engineering teams and delivering complex platforms/products with measurable outcomes.
  • Strong hands‑on backend development experience in Java (other modern backend stacks acceptable).
  • Proven expertise building external-facing APIs and integration platforms, including contract-first design, lifecycle/version management, security controls, and operational readiness.
  • Strong security fundamentals for external integrations: OAuth2/OIDC concepts, mTLS, PKI/certificates, secrets management, secure SDLC, and threat modeling.
  • Experience building AI-enabled product capabilities in production (beyond simple chat): grounded retrieval/search, structured tool/action execution, guardrails, evaluation practices, monitoring, and auditability.
  • Proficient in automation and continuous delivery methods; advanced understanding of agile and modern SDLC practices.
  • Strong understanding of application resiliency and observability (logs/metrics/traces), performance engineering, and incident management.
  • Experience working in regulated environments with strong controls, compliance requirements, and reliability expectations.

Preferred qualifications, capabilities, and skills

  • Developer portal or developer‑experience platform experience (onboarding journeys, documentation-as-a-product, integration tooling, sandbox/test experiences).
  • Experience building workflow/orchestration systems (state machines, async processing, retries, compensating actions).
  • Search and relevance experience (enterprise search, ranking, contextual retrieval, content quality signals).
  • Cloud-native delivery experience (containers/Kubernetes) and event‑driven architectures (webhooks/callbacks/streams).
  • Prior payments, treasury, or broader financial-services platform experience.
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