Technical Lead – Java / Full Stack

JOB DESCRIPTION

Technical Lead – Java / Full Stack

About Sysco LABS

Sysco LABS is the Global In-House Center of Sysco Corporation (NYSE: SYY), the world’s largest foodservice company. Sysco ranks 55th in the Fortune 500 list and is the global leader in the trillion-dollar foodservice industry.

Sysco operates 333 distribution centers across 10 countries, with 75,000 colleagues serving approximately 670,000 customer locations, including restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments, entertainment venues and more. For fiscal year 2026, which ended June 27, 2026, the company generated sales of more than $84 billion.

Sysco LABS Sri Lanka delivers the technology that powers Sysco’s end-to-end operations.

Sysco LABS’ enterprise technology is present in the end-to-end foodservice journey, enabling the sourcing of food products, merchandising, storage and warehouse operations, order placement and pricing algorithms, the delivery of food and supplies to Sysco’s global network and the in-restaurant dining experience of the end-customer.

The Opportunity

Leads the team and owns the technical delivery, architecture, and code quality of its services, while actively coding, mentoring engineers, and leading the team through the full engineering lifecycle. As the team's designated leader, the TL sets clear priorities, empowers the team to work autonomously, and steps in with direction when needed - combining hands-on senior engineering with direct people leadership, release management ownership, and responsible AI adoption across the team.

Contributes to elevating the overall Sysco engineering ecosystem through active participation in Communities of Practice, technical workshops, knowledge-sharing initiatives, and technical publications.

Some flexibility in daily schedule may be expected, on an as-needed basis, to allow for reasonable working-hour overlap with global colleagues, supporting collaboration across regions including North America and Europe.

Responsibilities

Technical Delivery & Architecture

• Own the design and code quality of the team's work, guiding members on best practices, secure/parallel programming, and data privacy policies; identify and close team-level knowledge gaps and keep the tech stack current through continuous dialogue with architects.
• Apply a broad range of design patterns and reference architectures, guiding the team on their use; act as the business domain expert in the team who interprets requirements and makes/defends technical decisions, mentoring others in their own decision-making.
• Select and suitably apply from enterprise-defined architecture patterns, and own performance/availability hygiene, defining and investigating performance metrics using approved tools.
• Make design and technical decisions for AI-integrated features, while consulting senior architects on cross-platform implications; set team norms for AI-assisted development, ensuring usage stays visible, reviewable, and compliant.

Delivery, Quality & Operations

• Own the team’s release management processes end-to-end - planning, scheduling, and controlling delivery through environments - applying Scrum/Kanban/Waterfall as appropriate to improve estimation accuracy.
• Drive code quality culture: implement best practices, lead technical code reviews, and establish unit/integration testing processes, ensuring services meet QA standards - including defining how AI-generated code is reviewed, tested, and accepted.
• Own production stability for the team's services: lead root-cause analysis using approved monitoring/observability tooling, define SLIs/SLOs, and represent the team during major incidents.
• Apply DevOps and cloud best practices (AWS/GCP/Azure, IaC) with a focus on cost efficiency, high availability, and security; proactively address vulnerabilities via approved tooling and own cost/security/compliance for all types of workloads owned by the team.

People & Stakeholder Leadership

• Lead and develop a high-performing engineering team by setting clear goals, priorities, and expectations; empower team members to operate with autonomy and ownership while providing guidance, coaching, and timely decision-making when needed.
• Foster an inclusive team culture, balancing delivery excellence with team engagement, professional growth, and effective conflict resolution, escalating issues only when necessary.
• Facilitate cross-team communication, resolve conflicts, and take ownership of ensuring team communication supports delivery goals and quality expectations with internal and external stakeholders.
• Evaluate and drive adoption of new tools/tech stack changes - including AI tools - within the team and division, educating others on the broader technical landscape.
• Foster a culture of innovation and responsible AI experimentation, balancing exploration with delivery goals and compliance; model responsible AI usage while empowering the team to adopt it confidently.
• Lead technical interviews and hiring decisions for the team, evaluating both technical depth and team fit to build a strong, well-rounded engineering team.

Requirements

Technical Skills

• Strong proficiency in Java and the Spring ecosystem, with expertise in building scalable, secure, and maintainable enterprise applications, APIs, microservices, and distributed systems.
• Strong full-stack development experience across backend and frontend technologies, with the ability to design and deliver end-to-end solutions spanning APIs, business logic, databases, web/mobile interfaces, and integrations
• Strong command of software architecture, design patterns, and reference architectures, with the judgment to make and defend technical decisions.
• Proficiency with cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and DevOps/IaC practices, cost-aware and security-conscious by design.
• Working knowledge of SRE fundamentals - monitoring/observability tooling, SLI/SLO definition, and incident management.
• Demonstrated ability to govern AI-assisted development and AI-integrated features, including compliance and auditability considerations.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Proven ability to lead, mentor, and manage the performance and morale of a small-to-medium engineering team.
• Strong verbal and written communication at management level, including external clients and contracting teams.
• Ownership mindset for release management and delivery outcomes, with sound judgment on when to escalate vs. resolve directly.
• A track record of fostering innovation and learning culture while keeping delivery on track.

Experience & Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including demonstrated experience in an equivalent leadership scope.

Benefits

• Performance-based annual bonus
• Performance rewards and recognition
• Agile Benefits - special allowances for Health, Wellness & Academic purposes
• Paid birthday leave
• Team engagement allowance
• Comprehensive Health & Life Insurance Cover - extendable to parents and in-laws
• Hybrid work arrangement

Sysco LABS is an Equal Opportunity Employer