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
Skills Required
- 7+ years of hands-on software development experience building production-grade applications
- Proven experience leading engineering teams or serving as a technical lead on complex projects
- Strong software engineering fundamentals (OOP, design patterns, data structures, algorithms, system design)
- Demonstrated ability to stay hands-on while leading teams and driving delivery
- Strong proficiency in Java and/or Kotlin with ability to write clean, maintainable, testable code
- Android development experience
- Experience designing and integrating APIs and working with asynchronous programming models
- Solid understanding of modern software architecture principles, testing strategies, CI/CD practices, and code quality standards
- Proven track record delivering complex, business-critical projects in a fast-paced environment
- Strong communication, stakeholder management, and mentoring skills
- Experience with Android Jetpack, Jetpack Compose, MVVM, Coroutines, and modern Android practices
- Experience with cloud-native architectures, microservices, or distributed systems
- Experience building and scaling mobile applications for large user bases
Sysco Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Sysco and has not been reviewed or approved by Sysco.
-
Healthcare Strength — Multiple national medical plan options with telehealth, behavioral health resources, and targeted programs indicate broad coverage and support. Preventive care access and ancillary offerings (dental, vision, Rx advocacy) further reinforce the package.
-
Retirement Support — A 401(k) with automatic company contributions plus a match, alongside an employee stock purchase plan, underscores solid retirement support. At union locations, enhanced pension terms add to perceived long‑term value.
-
Pay Growth & Progression — Recent collective bargaining outcomes with substantial wage increases demonstrate meaningful pay progression where contracts apply. In high‑volume markets, incentive structures can amplify earnings beyond base rates.
Sysco Insights
What We Do
Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food and related products to customers who prepare meals away from home. This includes restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments, entertainment venues, and more. Sysco operates almost 340 distribution centers, in over 10 countries, with 76,000 colleagues serving approximately 730,000 customer locations. The company generated sales of more than $81 billion in fiscal year 2025 that ended June 28, 2025. As the world’s largest food-away-from-home distributor, Sysco offers customized supply chain solutions, bespoke specialty product offerings, and culinary support to drive customers to innovate and optimize their operations. We act as a trusted business partner to our customers, helping them grow through our industry-leading portfolio that includes fresh produce, premium proteins, specialty products, sustainably focused items, equipment and supplies, and innovative culinary solutions. For more information, visit www.sysco.com. For important news and key information for Sysco investors, visit the Investor Relations section of the company’s website at investors.sysco.com.
