Staff / Principal Software Engineer, Lead (HHS)

Staff / Principal Software Engineer, Lead (HHS)

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today's digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists. The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, lead software engineers combine hands‑on development with technical leadership to guide strategy and delivery. They raise the engineering bar while ensuring systems are secure, resilient, and scalable.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching one of the most ambitious transformations in government — and this is a rare chance to be part of it. You’ll join a high‑impact team of product managers, researchers, designers, engineers, and security experts working side‑by‑side with HHS leadership to modernize the systems people rely on to access healthcare, strengthen cybersecurity that protects personal data, launch digital services used by tens of millions every day, and integrate data and AI responsibly into daily work across the department so teams at every level can make smarter, safer decisions.

As a lead software engineer on this project, you’ll provide direction while staying hands‑on, designing and building services with an emphasis on reliability, security, and simplicity. You’ll help standardize engineering practices, improve observability, and embed security and compliance into delivery from the start. Just as importantly, you’ll prepare federal teams to sustain these improvements by sharing knowledge and practices that last — from training and enablement to reusable tools like templates, playbooks, and decision records.

What you’ll do

• Lead technical direction for one or more products and platforms, from discovery through production operations
• Design and build services with an emphasis on reliability, security, and iterative releases
• Apply modern delivery practices — including continuous integration and delivery (CI / CD), trunk‑based development, code review, and automated testing
• Standardize environments with infrastructure as code (IaC) and policy as code for secure, repeatable delivery
• Improve observability and service health with metrics, logs, and traces, guided by service level objectives (SLOs)
• Embed security and compliance from day one, supporting evidence automation and continuous Authority to Operate (ATO) practices
• Mentor engineers, facilitate technical design reviews, and model pragmatic, high‑quality engineering practices
• Help federal teams sustain improvements by delivering training and enablement, and by leaving behind reusable resources such as templates, playbooks, and decision records

What we're looking for

Nice‑to‑have qualifications

Don’t meet 100% of the criteria but think you can do the job? We’d love to chat anyway! We’re on a mission to build diverse teams, and studies have shown that women and marginalized folks are less likely to apply to jobs if they don’t check every box.

Other requirements

Position type

This is a full‑time, exempt position.

Location

This role requires some in‑person time in Washington, DC. Candidates based in the DC area should be able to work on‑site at HHS periodically. Candidates outside the area are also welcome to apply, as long as they can travel to DC frequently for on‑site collaboration. A relocation incentive of up to $10,000 is available.

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Software Engineer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows :

Your well‑being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways :

Interview tips

We want you to have a great interview experience with us! Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview :

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.

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