Software Engineer Lead-3 - Java, Spring boot, Kafka at PNC
Birmingham, AL
$67,500–$172,500from the description
Jul 3, 2026
Birmingham, AL
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A lead-level engineering role focused on designing, building, and maintaining APIs — primarily RESTful and GraphQL — within a retail banking technology organization. The position involves leading a team of developers, defining API contracts, integrating services with databases and third-party systems, and supporting CI/CD and event-streaming workflows using Kafka. Suits engineers with solid Java and Spring Boot backgrounds who are comfortable in a hands-on technical leadership capacity.
Senior level · 3+ years · Pittsburgh, PA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 70 people in the Pittsburgh, PA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 40–130
Applicant volume Light — Few people clear these requirements, so an application that does clear them gets looked at. Worth applying to even if you miss a nice-to-have.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $127,238 (middle half $97,661–$159,195). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The role is titled 'Software Engineer Lead' and includes leading a team of mid-level to senior developers, but the JD does not describe formal people-management responsibilities (no hiring, performance reviews, or budget ownership mentioned). It reads primarily as a technical lead/hands-on IC role, so 15-1252 was chosen over 11-3021; however, the team-lead framing makes 11-3021 a plausible runner-up.
The posting lists four possible locations (Pittsburgh PA, Strongsville OH, Birmingham AL, Dallas TX); Pittsburgh is used as the primary CBSA since it is listed first and is PNC's headquarters city.
The education section states 'Bachelors' but immediately qualifies it with 'In lieu of a degree, a comparable combination of education, job specific certification(s), and experience may be considered,' so the degree requirement is set to None.
GraphQL and OpenAPI/Swagger appear in the Key Responsibilities section (core focus), which functions as a requirements-level block, so they are treated as hard gates.
OAuth2 and JWT appear in the Key Responsibilities section under 'Implement authentication and authorization,' treated as hard gates consistent with the required-skills framing of that section.
Kubernetes, CI/CD, and cloud platform familiarity (AWS/Azure/GCP) are listed under 'Preferred Qualifications.' API gateways and observability tools appear under 'Nice to Have.' All are marked preferred.
The compensation range ($67,500–$172,500/year) is unusually wide, likely reflecting the multiple geographic locations and PNC's standard broad-band structure.
Read the full posting
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