Technical Lead, IT​/Tech, Systems Engineer

Position Description

The Technical Lead is the single‑threaded, end‑to‑end technical authority for a mission‑critical, modular enterprise web platform. This role owns the complete technical and engineering lifecycle—from requirements shaping through architecture and implementation, to deployment, release readiness, and operational delivery. The Technical Lead ensures clear separation between core platform behavior and module‑specific behavior, maintaining technical coherence, security, performance, and maintainability while enabling rapid iteration and predictable delivery.

This role requires a leader who can step into an existing codebase and infrastructure, quickly assess what is working and what must change, and execute phased improvements without disrupting delivery commitments.

Must be a U.S. citizen and able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance.

• Own technical direction across requirements, architecture, engineering practices, development, deployment, and delivery.
• Serve as final technical decision‑maker for solution approach, engineering standards, and platform evolution.
• Ensure modules integrate cleanly with the core platform and align to established architectural principles.
• Balance delivery speed with long‑term technical sustainability.

• Define and enforce boundaries between core platform services (shared capabilities) and module behavior (domain‑specific workflows).
• Establish extension patterns, module contracts, and reusable component strategies to maximize reuse and prevent architecture drift.
• Maintain a lightweight technical decision record process (e.g., ADRs) for key tradeoffs.

• Set and enforce engineering best practices (code review standards, testing expectations, branching strategy, dependency management).
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across application, data, integration, and infrastructure layers.
• Ensure operational readiness: logging/monitoring hooks, error handling, configuration strategy, feature flags, rollback considerations.

• Engineer security and compliance into design and delivery.
• Implement and enforce
  
  STIG-aligned hardening requirements across application, infrastructure, deployment, and operational practices.
• Ensure secure‑by‑default patterns for authentication/authorization, secrets management, auditing, and data protection.

• Evaluate and recommend technologies and patterns appropriate for mission constraints, risk profile, and delivery timelines.
• Provide pragmatic tradeoff decisions and drive adoption of reference implementations that accelerate delivery.

• Quickly assess existing architecture, delivery bottlenecks, and technical debt.
• Develop and execute a phased improvement plan that reduces risk incrementally while maintaining delivery continuity.
• Lead root‑cause analysis for significant issues and ensure preventative actions are built into standards and backlog.

• Partner closely with the Program/Project Manager to align delivery commitments and manage risk.
• Support the requirements development function to ensure work is feasible, testable, and sliced for iterative delivery.
• Guide the delivery team (Lead Developer and engineers) to remove blockers and maintain technical coherence.
• Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to integrate AI capabilities into module solutions where required.
• Partner with QA (including automation) to ensure quality gates and regression coverage support rapid iteration.

• 15+ years of professional software engineering experience, including substantial hands‑on architecture and implementation responsibility.
• Proven experience leading end‑to‑end delivery of complex, modular enterprise systems.
• Deep understanding of architecture patterns, modular design, integration strategies, and data design.
• Demonstrated ability to step into an existing environment and rapidly assess technical state, risks, and priorities.
• Strong command of engineering best…