Java Technical Lead Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

Job Title: Solutions Architect / Technical Lead (1099)
Location: 100% Remote - anywhere in the Continental U.S.
Rate: $117.50
Hours: Approximately 36 hours/week, consistent across a 9-month engagement
Note: This is a 1099 position.

Friends From The City is a design, research, and engineering company focused on public impact. Our mission is to make digital interactions with government simple, intuitive, and accessible. That means removing barriers like confusing user flows, inaccessible content, and language limitations that prevent people from getting what they need.

We build digital products using accessible design, rigorous research, and reliable code.

The Solutions Architect / Technical Lead will provide hands-on technical leadership for the design, development, and modernization of complex public-interest digital services. This role is responsible for translating product, user, program, and regulatory needs into secure, scalable, and maintainable technical solutions spanning user-facing applications, APIs, data services, configurable workflows, integrations, and cloud infrastructure.

Working closely with product, design, engineering, security, and program teams, this person will establish architectural direction while remaining close enough to implementation to guide critical technical decisions, resolve complex challenges, and ensure solutions can evolve from prototype and alpha delivery into reliable production systems. Experience with health IT or similarly complex, regulated, data-intensive environments is important for success in this role.

Requirements

What you'll achieve:
In this role, you will lead the technical architecture and delivery of modern public-interest digital services, with a focus on secure, accessible, configurable health and government systems. You will translate product and program requirements into scalable architecture, guide engineering implementation, and ensure prototypes and alpha solutions can mature into reliable production platforms.

You will:

• Own solution architecture across front-end applications, APIs, data services, configuration platforms, and cloud infrastructure
• Lead the evolution of configurable, rules-driven workflows rather than hardcoded application logic
• Design and maintain versioned APIs, data models, configuration schemas, and integration boundaries
• Guide development of branching, validation, workflow, content, and configuration-management capabilities
• Ensure systems preserve historical/versioned behavior and support safe configuration change and release governance
• Establish technical patterns for security, privacy, accessibility, observability, testing, and performance
• Define integration approaches for existing government systems, identity services, content platforms, reference data, and external APIs
• Review architecture and code, mentor engineers, and make pragmatic technical decisions that balance alpha delivery with long-term maintainability
• Partner closely with product, design, research, security, data, and program teams
• Support deployment, troubleshooting, technical documentation, and transition from prototype through production

Skills You'll Need to Bring:
We are looking for a senior technical leader who can move comfortably between architecture and hands-on implementation. The ideal candidate brings a mix of the following:

• 7+ years of experience designing and developing production software systems, including technical leadership responsibilities
• Strong experience designing RESTful APIs, service boundaries, and domain/data models
• Strong experience with modern application architecture using technologies such as .NET/C#, Java, Node.js, Python, or comparable platforms
• Experience with modern front-end architectures using React, TypeScript, or comparable frameworks
• Experience designing relational data models and working with technologies such as PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite, or similar databases
• Demonstrated experience with configuration-driven systems, workflow engines, rules engines, dynamic forms, or other metadata-driven platforms
• Experience designing versioning, immutable configuration, auditability, change governance, or similar approaches for systems where historical behavior must be preserved
• Strong understanding of application security, privacy, authentication/authorization, API security, and secure software development practices
• Experience with automated testing, CI/CD, observability, performance engineering, and production reliability
• Ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear architecture decisions and communicate tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience leading engineers through incremental delivery while protecting long-term architectural integrity
  

Health IT / Domain Experience:
Health IT experience or equivalent experience with complex, regulated data systems is required.

• Relevant experience may include:
• Public health, health care, clinical, safety-surveillance, regulatory, or health-data systems
• Electronic health records, clinical workflows, case reporting, surveillance systems, or health information exchange
• Familiarity with standards such as FHIR, HL7, USCDI, terminology/reference-data services, or comparable structured-data standards
• Experience working with highly sensitive, regulated, or mission-critical data where privacy, traceability, versioning, and data quality are essential
• Equivalent experience in another regulated environment may be considered when the candidate can demonstrate comparable complexity, governance, and interoperability requirements

Nice To Haves:
These are not required, but we would love to know if you have:

• Experience delivering digital services for federal, state, local, or tribal government
• Familiarity with USWDS, Section 508, WCAG, and accessible digital-service development
• Experience with Azure, AWS, or comparable cloud platforms
• Experience with infrastructure as code, containers, automated deployment, and DevSecOps
• Experience integrating CMS platforms, identity providers, reference-data systems, or enterprise APIs
• Familiarity with FHIR APIs, HL7 messaging, health terminology systems, or public-health interoperability
• Experience with configurable form engines, content governance, rules authoring, or workflow-management platforms
• Experience supporting government ATO, security assessment, privacy, or compliance activities
• Experience leading modernization of legacy systems while maintaining continuity for existing users and data

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, health informatics, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience
• Significant relevant experience designing and leading complex software systems
• Health IT, public health technology, regulated-data, or equivalent domain experience required.

Benefits

This is a 1099 independent contractor position and is not eligible for employee benefits, including health insurance, paid time off, or employer-sponsored retirement benefits.

1. Phone Interview
2. Technical Interview
3. Final Interview

Visit our Candidate Handbook to learn more about what to expect.