Software Engineering Lead Job Washington District of Columbia USA,Software Development

Connsci is seeking an experienced Software Engineering Lead / Engineering Manager to direct application development and Dev Sec Ops implementation for a federal customer's enterprise healthcare IT platform. This senior technical leadership and key personnel position will serve as the principal technical partner to the Product Manager and translate federal customer priorities into secure, scalable, and maintainable software solutions.

This hands‑on role combines application architecture and development with leadership of approximately three engineers. The successful candidate will bring expertise in Drupal/PHP development, AWS cloud environments, Kubernetes, and Agile delivery while guiding architecture decisions, code reviews, testing, and production releases. The Engineering Lead will report to the Product Manager and balance feature delivery with long‑term maintainability, security, and privacy requirements.

This position is expected to be remote, with initial in‑person customer meetings as needed. This opportunity is contingent upon contract award. Candidates must be willing to participate in proposal‑related technical oral presentations if the team advances in the procurement process.

In this role you can expect to:

Lead the engineering team through application design, development, testing, deployment, maintenance, and continuous improvement.
Provide hands‑on development support, code reviews, technical troubleshooting, and engineering mentorship.
Direct Drupal/PHP application development, API integration, and modernization of existing software components.
Translate federal customer requirements and user stories into technical designs, engineering tasks, and acceptance criteria.
Guide implementation of CI/CD pipelines using approved technologies such as Jenkins, Git Hub, Sonar Qube, Snyk, and Artifactory.
Integrate secure coding practices, automated testing, vulnerability remediation, and Dev Sec Ops controls throughout the development lifecycle.
Coordinate containerized application development, cloud migration, and deployments using Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS).
Collaborate with the System Architect on technical architecture, performance, reliability, scalability, and enterprise integration decisions.
Establish engineering quality standards and support controlled production releases with minimal disruption to end users.
Evaluate federally approved AI‑assisted development tools while enforcing security controls, human‑in‑the‑loop practices, and responsible AI governance.
Ensure AI‑assisted development tools operate within authorized federal environments and comply with applicable security and privacy requirements.
Communicate technical risks, architectural trade‑offs, and development priorities clearly to federal product and program leadership.
Support application monitoring, incident resolution, root cause analysis, and continuous performance improvement.
Coordinate engineering assignments, Agile workflows, dependencies, and milestones with the Product Manager to maintain delivery commitments.

Basic Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.
At least 10 years of experience in software development, including at least 5 years leading software engineering teams.
Strong hands‑on experience with Drupal architecture, custom module development, PHP, and application modernization.
Experience developing, deploying, and maintaining applications in AWS cloud environments.
Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS).
Practical experience with Jenkins, Git Hub, Sonar Qube, Snyk, Artifactory, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
Experience with REST APIs, authentication,…