Principal Software Engineer

Ad Hoc is a technology company that empowers organizations to deliver scalable, impactful digital services. Using modern, agile methods, our team creates products that meet people’s needs and transform their experience of government.

Our collaborations have shaped some of the defining moments in public-sector service delivery. We’ve helped build products that connect Veterans to tailored services, help millions access affordable health care, and support important programs like Head Start. As we work with agencies to deliver critical services, we’re also changing how the government approaches technology.

Our culture, communications, and tools are built for remote work, enabling us to bring together top talent nationwide. At Ad Hoc, remote life empowers our teams to design work environments that fit their lives and that foster flexibility and collaboration to achieve positive outcomes for our customers.

Ad Hoc values acceptance, accountability, and humility. We aren’t heroes. We learn from our mistakes and improve the process for the next time. We build small, inclusive teams to collaborate closely with our partners to solve the right problems and deliver software that works.

The Veterans Affairs business unit helps transform the VA into a modern digital services organization where Veteran outcomes are at the center of every effort. We partner with the VA to design and deliver seamless user experiences for Veterans, their families and caregivers, and VA employees. By applying better practices in service design, product management, and technology, we enable the VA to increase the use, quality, and reliability of services and decrease the time Veterans spend waiting for outcomes.

Principal Software Engineer - Front End/Back End serves as a subject matter expert, while serving as an individual contributor that provides mentorship associated with software engineering competencies. A Principal Software Engineer - Front End/ Back End exhibits influential skills to shape future work streams within the current customer base, while maintaining a strategic vision to successfully pursue new business opportunities. With limited oversight from leadership, you will be responsible for cohesively integrating industry software engineering trends and devising a plan for adoption within programs, as well as the business unit. A Principal Software Engineer - Front End/ Back End serves as a representative of the business unit, effectively communicating development strategies to a diverse audience. Primary expectations of a Principal Software Engineer - Front End/ Back End include:

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  Provides organizational oversight of best practices associated with software engineering

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  Exhibits a in-depth understanding of software development and utilizes their expertise to support the business unit via new business or organic growth opportunities

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  Advocates for innovation among the business unit, and collaborates with leadership throughout the organization

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  Demonstrates significant technical competence and ownership to broad audiences while driving progress on company strategic objectives within the business unit

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  Mentors, guides, and coaches other engineers at the company, with a focus on technical excellence and leadership

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  Defines and delivers minimal viable products independently or with new teams given ambiguous requirements

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  Effectively communicates on existing systems, design decisions, past performance, and a major history of the projects that they’ve been part of for bid-writing, tech demos, and other potentially client-facing communications

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  Maintains strong ties and familiarity with at least one major technical ecosystem (through either maintenance or participation in major communities and projects)

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  May support hiring, onboarding and career development activities

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  May represent the company publicly inclusive of writing blog posts, generating marketing materials, presenting at conferences, and taking part in panel discussions

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  May work cross-functionally to support data analytics activities within other business units

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  Understanding of the BU's current labor mix, with the ability to identify primary skills and experiences; supports the key personnel identification process

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  Extensive understanding of government and practice market conditions in order to drive organizational improvements and innovation

• Bachelor’s degree and 10+ years of engineering experience

  • Relevant years of experience may be substituted for education

• Extensive experience with large systems, leading large teams, and understanding interactions between people, systems, and processes

• Demonstrates expert-level knowledge in at least one technical area (including but not limited to frontend, backend, or infrastructure engineering)

• Experience using modern, open source software to prototype and deploy backend web applications, including all aspects of server-side processing, data storage, and integration with frontend development

• Experience with Java 17+, Spring boot, Reactive RESTful Web Services Development with Spring WebFlux, Streams, Kafka, Redis, Oracle DB

• Experience with legacy technology; MUMPS (VistaA), Java Server Page (JSP), Spring framework, Apache Struts, Hibernate, IBM ODM, Oracle WebLogic application server

• Web development using open-source web programming languages (e.g., Ruby, Python) and frameworks (e.g., Django, Rails)

• Developing and consuming web-based, RESTful APIs

• Using and working in team environments that use agile methodologies (e.g., Scrum, Lean)

• Authoring developer-friendly documentation (e.g., API documentation, deployment operations) Test-driven development

• Use of version control systems, specifically Git and GitHub

• Quickly researching and learning new programming tools and techniques

• Relational and non-relational database systems

• Scalable search technology (e.g. ElasticSearch, Solr)

• Handling large data sets and scaling their handling and storage

• Using and working with open source solutions and community

• Communicating technical concepts to a non-technical audience