Staff/Principal Software Engineer, Lead (HHS)

About the position

At Skylight, software engineers design, implement, and maintain software systems to improve government services for users. This software is built to meet the needs of regular users of government services as well as Skylight’s partners in government. As an engineering lead, you’ll drive technical strategy and execution across multiple delivery teams, supporting a range of public health initiatives in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This role offers a unique opportunity to solve entrenched data-related challenges that impact real-time public health interventions in the U.S. You’ll lead teams of software engineers, DevOps engineers, and data engineers to deliver modern, open-source tools for real-world case surveillance and public health practice.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate cross-functional technical teams, including feature development, DevOps, and customer support, to deliver scalable and sustainable public health software solutions
• Serve as a primary technical liaison to CDC and state-level clients, effectively communicating technical roadmaps, key decisions, trade-offs, and progress
• Set and drive overall technical strategy for the project, ensuring alignment with CDC partners and state-level stakeholders
• Manage and mentor technical leads and engineers, fostering professional development, collaboration, and high performance across teams
• Ensure engineering deliverables meet stakeholder needs across the full public health data life cycle, from ingestion and integration to analysis and dissemination
• Promote interoperability and data standards (e.g., HL7, FHIR) across systems, supporting integration of key data streams like electronic laboratory and case reporting (ELR), syndromic surveillance, and immunizations
• Identify and remove blockers across engineering teams, providing hands-on support and strategic direction where needed
• Achieve technical excellence by advocating for and adhering to lean-agile engineering principles and practices such as API-first design, simple design, continuous integration, version control, and automated testing
• Select and use the right tools, frameworks, languages, and technologies for the job, with a preference for open-source solutions
• Analyze systems to identify technical debt, instability, unreliability, and other opportunities for improvement, as well as design, document, and communicate solutions

Requirements

• Proven experience as a technical leader at the director level or as a manager-of-managers, with a track record of managing and mentoring multi-disciplinary engineering teams (software, DevOps, and data)
• Demonstrated success leading large-scale, production-ready systems, including legacy system modernization in complex, high-stakes environments
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders and align engineering work with program goals
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP), modern DevOps practices, and software development lifecycles
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives in dynamic, ambiguous environments with evolving priorities
• Ability to write clean, working, and reusable code
• Ability to produce high-quality code by adhering to good practices such as automated testing
• Familiarity with how to build secure, compliant software and defend against common vulnerabilities
• A foundational understanding of data engineering, including how to use various datastores to handle persistent data in software systems
• Understanding of the different pieces of software systems and how to fit them together, while keeping performance, reliability, and availability in mind
• Understanding of the importance of always putting users at the center of your work, including thinking through the impact and implications of any code that you write
• Ability to work successfully within a professional services environment (e.g., can communicate effectively with clients)
• Passion for creating better public outcomes through great government services
• A mindset and work approach that aligns with our core values
• Ability to travel for work from time to time

Nice-to-haves

• Experience working within or in close partnership with public health, with a strong understanding of the public health data ecosystem and mission
• Understanding of public health data standards and formats (e.g., HL7v2, FHIR, CDA, XML, JSON), and experience supporting interoperability initiatives
• Experience working with databases and/or cloud infrastructure
• Familiarity with CI/CD best practices
• Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g., Docker, Terraform)
• Experience with multiple programming languages and/or full-stack development (specifically Java and legacy Java systems)
• Prior experience working in the civic tech space
• Experience working in a remote team environment

Benefits

• Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
• Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
• Flexible paid-time-off policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
• Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents
• Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
• Business development / sales bonuses
• Referral bonuses
• Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development
• Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
• Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
• Dollar-for-dollar charity donation matching, up to $500 per year
• Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
• An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good