(1119604) Lead Software Engineer - Emerging Technologies

Diversified Services Network, Inc. (DSN) is seeking a full-time Lead Software Engineer – Emerging Technologies to join our team in your choice of our Chicago, IL; Peoria, IL; Irving, TX; or Broomfield, CO office locations. We offer a hybrid work model, full benefits, PTO, 401k, and more! If you're looking to grow your career within an extremely reputable, stable Fortune 100 company - let's talk!

Position Overview

The Lead Software Engineer in the Emerging Technology group is a hands-on technical leader who designs, builds, pilots, and scales next-generation software solutions that apply emerging technologies to high-value business problems. This role combines deep software engineering expertise with practical innovation, turning exploratory concepts into secure, reliable, maintainable, production-ready capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, development, and testing of modern software solutions, prototypes, pilots, and reusable platform capabilities.
• Evaluate, prototype, and apply emerging technologies such as generative AI, agentic workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), cloud-native services, APIs, automation, and data-driven application patterns.
• Translate business opportunities, product goals, and technical requirements into scalable software designs, solution patterns, technical roadmaps, and implementation plans.
• Mentor engineers, provide technical direction, facilitate design reviews, and promote a culture of experimentation, engineering excellence, and responsible technology adoption.
• Partner with product managers, architects, data scientists, cybersecurity, infrastructure, UX, and business stakeholders to deliver solutions aligned with organizational goals and risk expectations.
• Define and implement technical evaluation methods, including proof-of-concept success criteria, model and system performance measures, quality gates, automated testing, monitoring, and production readiness reviews.
• Identify technical risks, dependencies, integration needs, security considerations, and operational constraints early in the solution lifecycle and recommend practical mitigation strategies.

Requirements

Required Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field AND 8+ years of software engineering experience, OR
• 10+ years of equivalent experience without a degree.

Required Qualifications

• Hands-on development of complex applications, distributed systems, APIs, platforms, or cloud-native services.
• Proven leadership of technical work across the full software development lifecycle (SDLC) using a structured methodology — requirements analysis, architecture, design, coding, testing, and deployment.
• Strong proficiency in one or more modern programming languages such as Python, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, C#, or Go.
• Ability to convert business and market requirements into secure, scalable, observable, and maintainable software designs using modern architecture patterns, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.
• Experience designing, developing, and maintaining software integrations and interfaces across platforms and third-party packages.
• Ability to design, plan, and execute testing strategies that ensure product quality and adherence to requirements.
• Working knowledge of cloud platforms, containerization, infrastructure automation, and production support practices.
• Strong analytical, critical-thinking, and decision-making skills in ambiguous or rapidly evolving technical environments.
• Ability to communicate complex technical topics clearly to engineering, product, architecture, security, and business audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or integrating AI/ML, large language model (LLM), agentic, RAG, vector database, or prompt-based solutions.
• Experience taking emerging technology concepts from proof of concept through pilot, production hardening, governance review, adoption, and operational support.
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices, model evaluation, guardrails, data privacy, compliance, and enterprise risk management.
• Experience with serverless architectures, Kubernetes, microservices, event-driven architecture, API management, observability platforms, and infrastructure-as-code.
• Track record of identifying high-impact use cases and delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Ability to influence technical direction without direct authority and establish reusable engineering standards, patterns, frameworks, or accelerators.
• Advanced degree; cloud, AI/ML, or software architecture certification; or contributions to technical communities, open-source projects, patents, publications, or innovation initiatives.

Benefits

Salary Expectations: $140,000-145,000 annually