Lead Software Engineer

Description:

Aretum is seeking a Lead Software Engineer/Developer to serve as the hands-on technical lead of an Agile scrum team supporting a large-scale federal digital content management and systems integration program. This is a backend-focused engineering role. Python is the primary development language on the program, and you will lead the design and development of Python and Django services, REST APIs, and ETL pipelines that acquire, process, validate, and exchange digital content (images, video, audio, and textual materials) and its associated metadata between major enterprise systems. Portions of the existing platform are implemented in Java, so working Java proficiency is required, but the majority of new development is expected to be in Python. Working as part of an integrated team alongside government developers, testers, user experience staff, and subject matter experts, you will own the technical approach for content selection services, metadata transformation, API integration, secure content transfer, and workflow administration. You will guide a mid-level developer, coordinate with government technical leads, and remain accountable for the quality, maintainability, and security of the code your team delivers. This is a senior, designated lead position. 

Due to the nature of our work as a federal consulting organization, employees may be expected to handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and must adhere to applicable safeguarding and compliance requirements.  

Responsibilities 

Serve as the technical lead of a scrum team working on a three-week sprint cadence as part of an integrated team with government developers, testers, and stakeholders, using standard Agile practices including continuous integration and story-point-based planning in JIRA
Lead the design, development, and unit testing of Python and Django backend services that support system-to-system content acquisition, ingest, quality review, inventory, and reporting functions
Design and build REST APIs in Python and Django to support content extract, transform, and load (ETL) operations, metadata exchange, reporting, and digital content management functions across integrated enterprise systems
Design and implement content identification and selection services, including business rules for selection (date ranges, status flags, ownership), inclusion and exclusion criteria, filtering logic, and manual, scheduled, and event-driven selection triggers
Build metadata management and transformation services, including field mapping, normalization, schema validation, quality and completeness checks, and reconciliation logic for metadata mismatches and validation failures
Implement API integration and content transfer capabilities, including source and target API connectivity, authentication and authorization, secure transport, retry and error-handling logic, transfer status monitoring, and end-to-end transaction logging and traceability
Design relational data models and tune database schemas, queries, and indexes in PostgreSQL to support content registries, workflow state, audit history, and reporting
Implement asynchronous and background processing for long-running content operations, including queueing, task orchestration, checkpointing, throttling, and idempotent retry behavior for large or batched transfers
Maintain and extend existing Java components where the platform requires it, applying the same standards of testability, readability, and maintainability used across the codebase
Integrate existing malware scanning, file integrity validation (checksum comparison), and content routing utility services into exchange workflows through their documented APIs, including quarantine handling and remediation paths
Design and implement workflow administration and governance capabilities, including workflow states, approvals, escalations, exception paths, role-based permissions, operational queues, and audit logging
Design and tune search and indexing capabilities using Solr and Elasticsearch to support discovery, reporting, and content management features
Build and operate services across AWS-based development, test, staging, and production environments, contributing to infrastructure-as-code in Terraform and to containerized deployment patterns using Docker
Maintain continuous integration pipelines using Jenkins and Git, including automated build, test, and code quality stages such as SonarQube
Author unit test scripts for your own code and processes, and collaborate with government QA and testing staff who perform acceptance, integration, and accessibility testing, including participating in the creation of acceptance and testing criteria during sprint planning
Support the accessibility of user-facing components against WCAG 2.1 standards and support remediation of accessibility findings
Participate fully in Agile ceremonies, including user story creation sessions, daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives, recording all work as scored user stories in JIRA
Mentor the team's mid-level developer through pairing, design review, and constructive code review, and enforce the client's coding standards across the team's repositories
Provide technical input into lifecycle documentation maintained by the client, including system requirements and design documents, system diagrams, and security assessment and authorization artifacts
Handle all project information appropriately as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), performing all development within client-owned and client-managed systems and environments
Support end-of-engagement closeout activities, including finalizing documentation, closing tickets, and completing transition activities

Requirements

Minimum 5 years of professional software development experience, including experience serving as a technical lead or senior developer on an Agile team. 
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent additional experience
Proven ability to lead technical designs, conduct peer code review, and mentor mid-level developers
Deep, hands-on experience building production backend services and REST APIs in Python, including substantial experience with the Django framework
Strong experience with relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL, including data modeling, schema design, query optimization, and migrations
Working proficiency in Java, sufficient to maintain, extend, and troubleshoot existing Java components on the platform
Hands-on experience with Solr and Elasticsearch, including index design and query tuning
Experience designing and building microservices and REST APIs, including authentication, authorization, versioning, input validation, and error handling
Experience building ETL or data integration pipelines, including transformation, validation, reconciliation, and error recovery
Hands-on experience developing and deploying applications in AWS environments
Working experience with Terraform for infrastructure-as-code
Experience building and maintaining continuous integration pipelines with Jenkins and Git-based source control
Working knowledge of content-addressable storage concepts and patterns
Proficiency with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, sufficient to support and integrate with the program's user-facing components
Experience working in Agile and Scrum environments, including user-story-based development in JIRA with story-point estimation
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with government technical staff, product owners, and non-technical stakeholders in a fully remote setting
Preferred Qualifications

Experience supporting federal government clients, particularly on software development or systems integration programs
Experience with digital content, digital collections, or digital asset management systems, including ingest, preservation, derivative creation, or metadata exchange workflows
Experience with Celery or comparable distributed task queues for asynchronous processing
Experience with Docker, Red Hat Linux, Apache, and Varnish in enterprise environments
Experience with automated testing and code quality tools such as Selenium and SonarQube, and with accessibility testing practices under Section 508 and WCAG 2.1
Experience with reporting and monitoring tools such as Grafana or Tableau
Familiarity with front-end frameworks and libraries such as React, Angular, or Bootstrap
Experience working in environments governed by NIST SP 800-53 security controls and CUI handling requirements
Experience supporting assessment and authorization (A&A / ATO) activities with technical inputs such as system diagrams
Familiarity with metadata standards and formats such as Dublin Core, METS, MODS, or MARC