Principal Software Engineer, Lead; HHS

Staff/Principal Software Engineer, Lead (HHS)

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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.

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.

• 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

• Experience leading engineering for complex, production systems and delivering measurable outcomes
• Strong hands‑on skills building services and APIs in a modern language and runtime, with clean, reliable, reusable code
• Familiarity with modern delivery practices — CI/CD, automated testing, code review, and operating services in cloud environments
• Proficiency with IaC and environment automation
• Understanding of secure software practices and how to integrate compliance into delivery
• Knowledge of data persistence and patterns for building resilient, observable services
• Clear communication skills with executives and cross‑functional teams
• Commitment to equipping federal teams with documentation, training, and mentoring so improvements last beyond the contract
• Ability to work effectively in a professional services environment
• Passion for improving public outcomes through great government services
• A mindset and work approach that align with Skylight’s core values
• Ability to spend time on‑site at HHS in Washington, DC — either by being based locally or by traveling regularly for in‑person work when it’s important

• Experience with containers and orchestration (e.g., Docker,…