Consulting Engineer

About A1M 

A1M Solutions is a woman-owned small business driven by the aspiration to provide value to our customers, employees, partners, and community while remaining aligned to our guiding principles of foundational values, deliberate focus, and empathetic connection.

A1M’s mission is to preserve and improve government healthcare programs that are lifelines for underserved people in the United States, including people in poverty, elderly people, members of ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, and refugees. We look for projects with nation-wide impact at the intersection of policy, data, and user experience design.

Besides building useful and usable digital services, A1M helps teams improve their agile, user-centered design practices – or helps them get started. Our goal is not just to build sustainable public services, but also to leave our teaming partners and customers more skilled and more confident in the future.

About this role

In this role, you will work with a cross-functional team to investigate and understand systemic challenges with State Medicaid Enterprise System modernization. You will be the team’s expert on technical aspects of Medicaid Enterprise Systems, working with and advising a team of policy experts, system architects, UX researchers and project managers to analyze the complex factors that lead projects to go over budget and underdeliver.

This is largely an advisory and consultative role – interviewing and problem solving at a high level, translating and communicating. The work will include influencing research questions, upskilling the team’s assessment of complex system architecture, participating in interviews and assessing potential opportunities for change. In this role, you have the opportunity to save federal and state governments billions of dollars by making clear, effective recommendations in partnership with your team.

Skills and responsibilities 

• Explain relevant complexities of Medicaid Enterprise Systems to experts in other domains.
• Communicate technical information clearly and effectively - make diagrams and write brief, clear descriptions
• Build trust with teammates, clients and interviewees, enabling them to tell you their concerns and challenges plainly.
• Assess architectural decisions and identify where they diverge from sound practice, contributing to documentation and diagrams as needed. 

Communication and collaboration

• Collaborate to break down ambiguous or complex goals into concrete, feasible steps. 
• Participate in discussions with internal and external stakeholders. 
• Get buy-in from relevant parties (teammates, team leads, government stakeholders, etc.) to make sure necessary work happens.

Cross-domain understanding

• Anticipate and proactively provide information needed by other practices and disciplines.

Government domain acumen

• Sufficient government understanding to anticipate needs of state government partners and users, and be prepared to speak to them proactively.

Qualifications

8 years of relevant professional experience.

Your portfolio or resume should demonstrate

• 4+ experience with state Medicaid Enterprise Systems, on the government or contractor side (or both). 
• Expertise in MITA.
• Expertise in how to build secure, compliant software and minimize risk of vulnerabilities
• Demonstrated experience building and maintaining complex, scalable systems as well as shaping system design and contributing to architectural decisions
• Demonstrated experience evaluating the design and scalability of complex, multi-component systems, including how API’s, databases, and data pipelines are architected and where they introduce risk. 
• Ability to write high-quality, working, and reusable code
• Advanced proficiency in modern software development languages and systems, sufficient to assess the quality and soundness of someone else’s architecture and code. 
• Proven ability to communicate technical complexity clearly and effectively to diverse stakeholders.
• Capable of operating as a self-starter in ambiguous environments, identifying high-impact work independently and executing on it.

• Expertise in both information security as a field of practice and in security risk management frameworks used by states and the federal government.
• Experience working in government consulting engagements

Preferred

• Experience working with a social impact-focused product team or in civic tech
• Experience working with distributed, cross-functional teams, including product managers, designers, engineers, and subject matter experts
• Personal experience with government health and human services programs
• Working knowledge of Medicare, the ACA, MACRA, Medicaid, or CHIP
• Familiarity with SAFe and agile methodologies
• Experience working or integrating with legacy systems
• Experience working on large-scale applications and systems

Applicant requirements

• This role is scoped to around 120 hrs total
• The current estimated length of the contract is approximately 6 months (September 2026 - February 2027)
• Our contracts require you to work from the United States. That includes all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and all US territories.
• Independent Contractors must have been residents in the United States for 3 of the past 5 years.
• Due to tax reasons, Independent Contractors cannot reside in the state of New York.
• You must already have legal authorization to work within the US and not require ongoing visa sponsorship to maintain legal authorization to work.
• You may be required to provide documentation, such as a business or professional license, and copy of insurance certificates demonstrating your ability to work as an independent contractor.
• Because independent contractors will have access to government data and systems, they will need to complete a Public Trust form. Public Trust is a type of background investigation, but it is not a security clearance. Depending on the contract role, you must complete either the Standard Form 85 (SF85) or 85P (SF85P) questionnaire. You will at the very least get asked questions about where you’ve lived, worked, gone to school, military history, police records, and substance use. You’ll also need to have your fingerprints taken.
• Our partners primarily work on Eastern Standard Time (EST), and will require flexibility in your hours if you reside outside of the EST zone.
• This is a 1099 independent contractor role. Contractor is responsible for their own taxes and benefits.

Compensation and benefits

This is a full time, remote, contract position. The project-based rate compensation will range from $100 - $120/hour depending on experience.

Interview process 

For a 1099 opportunity, we have four rounds of conversations to help ensure every employee we hire is the right addition for us and that we’re the right fit for them. Each interview ranges from  about 30–60 minutes long.

1. A1M Overview - We like to start off by getting to know more about you, how you work, what you are looking for in your next role, and what you’re passionate about. This is your opportunity to ask questions and get a feel for us as A1M. We’ll talk about our mission and vision, and what we hope to accomplish through the business. We’ll also cover some particulars about federal contracting that may affect the timelines of when folks can expect to start. We talk about the type of contracts we have, and how our team tends to work. 
2. Technical Assessment - If our work at A1M broadly matches what you’re looking for, we’ll set up time to get into the nitty-gritty of your technical skills. In this conversation, you’ll meet with one of our managers to walk through one or two projects in-depth that you feel are most relevant to A1M’s work so that we can get an in-depth understanding of your skill set and interests. Please be prepared to speak about one or two projects you feel are most relevant to the work of A1M. 
3. Project Overview - Based on what we’ve learned in our prior conversations, we will match your unique background and goals with the right opportunity. Members of the project team will share the day-to-day of the project to outline its vision, objectives, and team dynamics. This conversation ensures the specific position aligns with your career goals as well as ensuring you’ll be successful on the team. 
4. Offer - At this point, you’ve made it! You'll meet with our leadership to go over the offer letter and have a chance to ask any remaining questions.

Equal employment opportunity

A1M Solutions is building a culturally diverse and pluralistic organization committed to working in a multicultural environment where differences are valued and respected.  Women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

A1M Solutions is an equal-opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.

As a federal contractor and subcontractor, we certify that we do not operate any programs that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.

EEOC: Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal - Optimized for Screen Readers