Senior Application Architect

Job Description:

We are seeking a Senior Application Architect who operates as a product-focused technical leader and advisor within a large federal health program. This role partners closely with the Program Manager, Product Managers, and stakeholders to shape product strategy, define technical direction, and ensure delivery aligns with mission outcomes, user needs, and long-term platform sustainability.

The ideal candidate balances hands-on architectural expertise with product and program-level thinking, serving as a trusted technical advisor who translates business objectives into scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions. This individual will be responsible for roadmaps, evaluates tradeoffs of implementations, mitigates technical risk, and guides teams toward solutions that maximize value across multiple products and delivery teams.

Basic Requirements:  

• Ability to successfully obtain a U.S. Federal Position of Trust clearance designation.  
• Must reside in and be able to perform work in the United States.  
• Must have lived in the United States for 3 of the last 5 years. 
• Bachelor’s Degree and at least 4 years leading/architecting all phases of the agile software development life cycle.  
• Over eight (8) years of progressive experience as developer, senior developer, lead developer etc. building and architecting large scale enterprise applications using Javascript, Node.JS and Angular to build SPA and REST based architectures. 
• Two (2) or more years of experience working with Federal Healthcare IT Projects. Other government contract project management experience will be considered.  

Additional Qualifications: 

• Expertise with Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, Power Point, SharePoint, etc.).  
• Experience in an Agile environment, leading agile sprint teams and using agile collaboration tools (Jira, confluence, etc.) 
• Demonstrate experience applying Human-Centered Design (HCD) principles to product strategy, solution design, and technical decision-making
• Ensure solutions are designed with a clear understanding of user workflows, pain points, and accessibility needs
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose business problems, and support to come up with product roadmaps and timelines for product implementation.  
• Demonstrate the ability to lead and support digital transformation of a product, modernizing legacy capabilities into scalable, user-centered digital solutions aligned with mission outcomes
• Demonstrated ability to analyze complex data and business for business operations; demonstrated ability to understand user needs for system and interfaces and come up with requirement documentation. Able to perform end-to-end business process analysis to identify gaps and come up with improvements. 
• Verifiable experience with architecting applications, systems or products using agile & iterative practices 
• Must be able to exercise critical and rational thinking to identify alternate solutions, strengths & weakness of each option, documenting and discussing them with stakeholders to inform decisions. 
• Must have demonstrated experience in documenting complex technical and business problems in a simple & intuitive manner that others can understand. 
• Must have experience in architecting and hands-on implementation experience with modern technologies stack like Node.js, Angular latest versions, Fastify, Lambda, AWS, PostgreSQL 
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and must be detailed oriented.  
• Must be able to effectively and professionally communicate with management, peers and customers as well as demonstrate sound judgment/reasoning skills 
• Must show appetite for active learning, embracing change and mentoring others in organization. 
• Knowledge of Healthcare, Medicare and Medicaid systems and data is a plus. 
• Demonstrated ability to come up with system designs, architecture, process flows and Concept of Operations for large complex systems 
• Demonstrated experience with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) 
• Strong understanding of AWS Well-Architected Framework principles and hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform for deploying and managing scalable, secure, and efficient cloud solutions. 
• Proficiency in designing systems using UML and BPM techniques to effectively communicate and document complex processes and system architectures. 
• Demonstrate experience using Amazon SQS to support asynchronous, reliable message-based communication between system components.
• Hands-on expertise in building, fine-tuning, and deploying large language models (LLMs) using platforms like Amazon Bedrock or similar generative AI services. 
• Experience with developing, customizing, and managing Drupal-based websites, including a solid understanding of module development, theming, and site configuration. 
• Experience with Big data technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, Machine Learning and one more cloud environments (AWS, Google and Azure) . AWS preferred.

Responsibilities: 

• Will be responsible for overseeing 4 teams of developers, and 6 applications made from a mix of front end, back end, and ETL technologies. 
• Design and maintain Jenkins CI/CD pipelines aligned with architectural standards, security requirements, and agile delivery practices
• Serve as a technical partner to Product and Program leadership to ensure product strategy is feasible, scalable, and aligned with user and mission outcomes
• Lead project teams delivering software for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 
• Ensure software and other deliverables meet client expectations for quality, completeness and timeliness 
• Translate product vision, business goals, and policy requirements into actionable technical direction and architectural decisions
• Analyze our current Agile processes, prioritize areas of improvement, and work alongside key stakeholders to implement the improvements 
• Facilitate/participate in key Agile rituals across Scrum teams  
• Proven experience managing technical leads and developers, fostering collaboration, mentoring, and driving successful project outcomes. 
• Act as the primary technical advisor to the Program Manager, providing guidance on technical strategy, delivery risks, and architectural implications
• Provide architectural oversight across multiple applications and agile teams to ensure cohesive product direction
• Coach team members as needed, including resolving conflict  
• Communicate project risks and other status to external and internal senior stakeholders 
• Manage projects in JIRA and Confluence; providing training to team members as needed  
• Conduct periodic reviews and make recommendations for enhancements and improvements 
• Ensure that documentation is stored in the correct location according to version control requirements 
• Assist program in all process improvement activities 
• Stay hands-on with code with the team and guide them as needed 
• Working with Product Managers, Stakeholders to come up with Product Architecture, roadmaps and implementation plans. 
• Collaborating with Product teams to review code, designing proof of concepts, frameworks and ensuring best practices 
• Representing teams in Sprint demos to Clients. 
• Understanding and working with complex data and business processes to modernize legacy systems to improve the user experience. 
• Adhere to and driving agile & iterative development practices.

Public Trust Clearance:

Many of our roles require the hired candidate to go through public trust clearance. A minimum of 3 years of stay in the U.S. within the last 5 years is required to be eligible to qualify for public trust clearance sponsorship.

Work Location:

Headquartered in Arlington, VA, we also have a primary office in Baltimore, MD for those who prefer to work on-site. However, with employees spread across 40+ states, we have many remote roles.