MMD Services is partnering with a highly successful legal firm in Chicago on a newly created Lead Software Engineer seat. Our client is a global organization with a long track record and a strong reputation. They are building software in-house rather than buying it from vendors, and they have stood up an internal product and engineering organization to do it. The applications this team builds are used daily by roughly 5,000 people across the firm.
About the role:
The Lead Software Engineer takes technical ownership of the full-stack applications the team builds on .NET, React, Next.js, and Azure, including AI-powered features that help lawyers and staff work more effectively. This is a hands-on leadership role. You will write and review code, set engineering standards, make architectural decisions, and mentor other engineers, while partnering with product managers, architects, and business stakeholders to ship reliable software.
Duties and responsibilities:
Lead the design and delivery of full-stack applications using .NET, React and Next.js, and Azure, with ownership from architecture through production support.
Set engineering standards for code quality, testing, performance, and security, and hold the team to them through active code authorship and thorough code review.
Make architectural decisions for new features and systems, weighing trade-offs and ensuring solutions are maintainable, observable, and built to scale.
Lead the integration of AI and GenAI capabilities into firm applications, including LLM-powered features, retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, semantic search, and agentic workflows.
Mentor engineers through pairing, design reviews, and ongoing feedback.
Work with product managers, designers, and architects to turn business requirements into clear technical plans and realistic delivery milestones.
Own the reliability of production systems. Set observability standards, lead incident response, and see issues through to root cause.
Apply security best practices across the stack, including authentication, authorization, and data protection, with particular care given the sensitivity of legal data.
Partner with DevOps and Infrastructure on CI/CD pipelines, container platforms including Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Container Apps, and cloud deployment patterns.
Stay current on relevant technologies and bring well-reasoned recommendations to the team.
Participate in hiring, including technical interviews and onboarding new engineers.
Required:
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
A minimum of 8 years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of progression into a lead, staff, or principal-level role.
Strong full-stack development skills across .NET and C#, React, Next.js, and REST or GraphQL API design.
Demonstrated ability to architect and deliver production-grade applications with attention to reliability, performance, and security.
Hands-on experience building production applications on Microsoft Azure, including App Service, Container Apps or AKS, Azure SQL, Service Bus, and Azure OpenAI Service.
Experience with relational and NoSQL databases such as SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or Cosmos DB.Strong grounding in software engineering fundamentals, including system design, design patterns, testing strategy, microservices, and distributed systems.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, version control in Git, and Agile development practices.
Experience leading engineers, including setting technical direction, running design and code reviews, and helping team members grow.
Clear communicator, comfortable working with technical peers and non-technical stakeholders alike.
Preferred:
Experience building or integrating AI and GenAI features in production, including LLM APIs such as Azure OpenAI or Anthropic Claude, RAG pipelines, vector search, semantic ranking, or agentic workflows.
Familiarity with AI orchestration and workflow automation tools such as LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, Claude SDK, Temporal, or n8n.
Experience with workflow automation platforms, including low-code integration tools such as n8n or Power Automate and durable execution engines such as Temporal.
Experience with .NET Aspire for building and orchestrating cloud-native .NET applications.
Experience with containerization and orchestration using Docker, Kubernetes, or Azure Container Apps.
Familiarity with cloud-native and serverless architectures on Azure.
Experience with automated testing frameworks and test-driven development.
Background in professional services, including legal, financial services, accounting, or consulting.
Relevant Azure certifications such as AZ-204 or AZ-305.
Other skills and abilities:
Strong organizational skills. Strong attention to detail. Good judgment. Strong interpersonal communication skills. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Able to work harmoniously and effectively with others. Able to preserve confidentiality and exercise discretion. Able to work under pressure. Able to manage multiple projects with competing deadlines and priorities. MMD Services is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to an inclusive hiring process. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, creed, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy and childbirth, age, religion, disability, citizenship status, national origin, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Reasonable accommodation is available to enable individuals with disabilities to participate in the application and interview process and to perform the essential functions of the job.
