  We study the part of the renormalized, cutoff QED light-front Hamiltonian
that does not change particle number. The Hamiltonian contains interactions
that must be treated in second-order bound state perturbation theory to obtain
hyperfine structure. We show that a simple unitary transformation leads
directly to the familiar Breit-Fermi spin-spin and tensor interactions, which
can be treated in degenerate first-order bound-state perturbation theory, thus
simplifying analytic light-front QED calculations. To the order in momenta we
need to consider, this transformation is equivalent to a Melosh rotation. We
also study how the similarity transformation affects spin-orbit interactions.
