Open to opportunities

Stephen Watson

@stephenwatson

Message

Senior software engineer specializing in cloud-native microservices and AI-driven solutions.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I seek a senior engineering role driving cloud-native architectures and AI integrations, with mentorship responsibilities, cross-functional collaboration, and opportunities to scale systems and improve delivery.

I am a senior software engineer with extensive experience designing cloud-native, microservices-based systems and applying AI to real-world business problems. I have led cross-functional teams to migrate monolithic systems to microservices with zero downtime and architected event-driven platforms that scale to handle millions of events daily.

My hands-on technical work spans backend and frontend development — building modular ERPs with Java, Spring Boot, and Kotlin, creating React/TypeScript UIs, and delivering APIs with Python and FastAPI. I also fine-tune LLMs, implement RAG-based QA systems with LangChain, and optimize infrastructure on AWS using Terraform to reduce costs and improve reliability.

I mentor engineers, establish knowledge-sharing practices, and collaborate with product and stakeholder teams to align technical decisions with business outcomes. I seek opportunities where I can drive scalable architectures, advance AI adoption, and accelerate product delivery while fostering team growth.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Staff Software Engineer

Watkyn LLC

Nov 2024 - Aug 2025 (9 months)

Led a cross-functional Scrum team to migrate a legacy monolith to microservices with zero downtime, accelerating time-to-market by 30% and improving scalability to handle 5x traffic.

Microservices Event Driven Architecture Kafka AWS Kubernetes Terraform Docker Spring Boot CI CD Mentoring

Senior Software Engineer

Watkyn LLC

Jul 2018 - Oct 2024 (6 years 3 months)

Designed and implemented a modular ERP with Java, Spring Boot and Kotlin, defined APIs for 12+ microservices, and built an event-driven system processing 5M+ events daily to reduce bottlenecks by 30%.

Java Kotlin Spring Boot Apache Kafka Python fastAPI React TypeScript AWS Terraform

Software Engineer

Arkansas Health Network

Jun 2014 - Jun 2018 (4 years)

Built a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform with React and Node.js supporting 50K+ monthly users, implemented secure REST/GraphQL APIs and testing that achieved 90% code coverage.