Senior Software Engineer Contract Jobs in Iowa (NOW HIRING)

We're hiring! Kemin is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our team in Des Moines, Iowa. As a Senior Software Engineer, you will serve as the highest-level engineering execution contributor on the delivery team — the technical anchor for large project delivery, engineering quality, and team capability. You will lead complex projects end-to-end, run design reviews in collaboration with the Software Architect, enforce engineering standards, mentor all engineers, and own the team's CI/CD and DevOps practice. Where the Architect defines how the team builds, the SE3 is responsible for delivering it.

Join the Kemin Team and Transform Lives!

We are a privately held, family-owned-and-operated global biotechnology company driven by curiosity and committed to transforming the quality of life for people, pets, and the planet.

We create solutions that strengthen health and wellbeing, provide nutrition and immune support for pets and production animals, safeguard the planet’s natural resources, and protect the global food supply chain for generations to come.

We supply over 500 specialty ingredients for various industries, including human and animal health and nutrition, pet food, aquaculture, nutraceutical, food technologies, crop technologies, textiles, biofuels, and animal vaccines.

We employ 3,500 global employees and operations in 90 countries, including manufacturing facilities in Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Italy, San Marino, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States.

As a valued member of our team, you'll enjoy a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your financial, physical, and professional well-being:

• Competitive Financial Package: Enjoy a rewarding salary, uncapped bonus opportunities, a 401k match program, and generous paid vacation and holidays.
• Health and Wellness Support: Stay fit and healthy with our fitness reimbursement for the whole family, access to an on-site fitness center, a restaurant offering seasonal fresh food options, and free fresh fruit in break areas.
• Career Development and Advancement: Unlock your potential with opportunities for growth and development throughout your entire career.
• Continued Learning Opportunities: Grow your skills with our in-house learning platforms, offering thousands of training resources both live and online, and take advantage of tuition reimbursement for external post-secondary pursuits.
• Service Opportunities: Make a positive impact with paid time off for service, partnerships with The World Food Programme and Habitat for Humanity, and local community initiatives.

Software Architechture & Development

• Lead the design and development of complex features across .NET services, Angular and middleware layers, aligned with Software Architect standards; author technical design documentation and present to the Architect for validation.
• Write and review production-grade code; set the engineering quality bar; enforce coding standards, secure coding practices, and integration patterns defined by the Architect.
• Apply advanced prompt engineering to direct AI tools across code generation, debugging, refactoring, and documentation tasks; evaluate AI agent output for architectural fit and take responsibility for all committed code.

Technical Leadership & Mentoring

• Serve as the primary technical mentor for SE1 and SE2 engineers; lead onboarding, provide structured code review feedback, and actively support career growth.
• Lead design review meetings for assigned projects; proactively schedule Architect check-ins to validate scalability and design decisions before committing.
• Facilitate team knowledge-sharing sessions and identify skill gaps; coach engineers on prompt engineering, AI tool usage, and responsible AI practices.

DevOps, CI/CD & Platform Engineering

• Build, maintain, and continuously improve Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines implementing pipeline templates and standards.
• Implement and maintain Infrastructure within Azure that follows approved architectural patterns; own observability solutions across team services.
• Enforce deployment standards, branching strategies, and environment promotion gates as established by the Software Architect.

Testing, Quality, & Reliability

• Enforce the testing strategy defined by the Software Architect; lead quality execution across all projects including unit, integration, end-to-end, and performance testing.
• Lead quality improvement initiatives; track and drive reduction of defect rates, test coverage gaps, and reliability incidents.
• Conduct performance engineering and capacity planning for critical enterprise and data pipeline services.

Stakeholder Engagement & Technical Strategy

• Serve as the primary engineering liaison between the delivery team and the Software Architect; ensure architectural direction is understood and implemented correctly across all engineers.
• Represent the engineering team in discussions with IT leadership, project managers, and business stakeholders; translate technical constraints and delivery status clearly.
• Contribute delivery feasibility insight and ground-level engineering perspective to the Architect's technology evaluations and standards decisions

Continuous Learning

• Maintain deep expertise in the Microsoft Azure ecosystem, .NET roadmap, and AI tooling evolution including emerging agent frameworks and prompt engineering best practices.
• Evaluate new AI development tools and agent capabilities; assess fitness for the team's workflow and bring recommendations to the Software Architect
• Represent Kemin IT in relevant professional communities; bring external best practices and emerging trends back to the team.

• Education and Experience:
  • Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, IT, or a related field with 7+ years of experience including 2+ as a tech lead
• Expert-level C# / .NET proficiency with a track record of building and delivering production enterprise systems.
• Deep Angular and TypeScript expertise including performance optimization and enterprise-scale module architecture.
• Expert SQL Server skills: schema design, performance tuning, high availability, and disaster recovery concepts.
• Hands-on Azure DevOps mastery: pipeline authoring, release strategies, and environment management.
• Strong prompt engineering skills; experience directing AI tools for complex development tasks and evaluating AI agent output for quality and fit.
• Extensive knowledge of Microsoft Azure, including Azure resource provisioning, Azure Resource Manager (ARM), and resource governance/management (e.g., RBAC, policies, tagging, cost management).
• Leads technical direction for the team; formally mentors all engineers; owns onboarding and capability building; coaches on prompt engineering and responsible AI use.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, creed/religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship or immigration status (where applicable), sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy/childbirth/breastfeeding or related conditions, age (40+), disability (including the use of a service animal), genetic information, marital status, familial or caregiver status, military or veteran status, status as a victim of domestic violence, reproductive health decisionmaking, and any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We also prohibit retaliation for raising concerns or participating in an EEO process. Applicants who need a reasonable accommodation to apply or interview can email TalentAcquisition.US@Kemin.com.

A post-offer background check and drug screen is required.  Additional pre-employment requirements may be necessary based on position.

Kemin is a drug-free and tobacco-free campus. 

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