[Remote] Lead Software Engineer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. DSFederal is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to serve as the primary technical lead for NOAA’s Office of Water Prediction enterprise web and data dissemination platforms. The role oversees full-stack operations, maintenance, troubleshooting, cloud optimization, Tier 3 support, DevSecOps pipelines, security compliance, and continuous improvement across mission-critical hydrologic and geospatial applications.

Responsibilities

• Maintain, sustain, and improve NWPS and related OWP web applications to reliably deliver mission-critical hydrologic observations, river forecasts, and flood inundation maps to emergency managers and the public with 24x7 high availability during high-impact weather events
• Provide Tier 3 technical support for operational systems, responding to urgent operational issues within 1 hour (or 30 minutes after regular business hours). Conduct thorough troubleshooting, deliver Root Cause Analysis (RCA) documentation, and track ticket resolutions in VLab Redmine/GitLab
• Implement minor functional updates and O&M enhancements, including Quantitative Precipitation Estimate (QPE) processing fixes, bulk HydroNotes, dynamic hydrograph configuration, CMS gauge updates, and KML/KMZ data creation
• Build, maintain, and optimize automated CI/CD pipelines in VLab GitLab and GitHub. Integrate automated static code analysis, unit testing, dependency scanning, and vulnerability patches prior to code promotion
• Enforce the mandatory =80% statement test coverage threshold across all frontend (JavaScript) and backend (Python, Go, C/C++) code logic, while maintaining an Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) of 0 medium or high-level static linting errors
• Refactor and maintain cloud-agnostic Terraform modules to eliminate configuration drift, optimize AWS auto-scaling groups, manage IAM roles/secrets, and reduce compute/storage costs
• Prepare technical documentation, conduct peer code reviews, and present planned software changes to the NOAA Change Control Board (CCB) for formal release approval
• Participate in weekly status meetings with regional hydrologists, Tier 1/Tier 2 support teams, and OWP leadership. Maintain comprehensive developer documentation, API schemas, and architecture diagrams in version-controlled repositories

Skills

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or a related computational field
• Minimum of 5 years
• Progressive experience in software engineering, web application development, and cloud-optimized data dissemination solutions
• Demonstrated experience building, scaling, and maintaining mission-critical, public-facing, cloud-native web applications serving high-concurrency user volumes and high-volume scientific/geospatial datasets
• Proven track record working within Agile/Scrum development methodologies, managing software repositories in GitLab/GitHub, and enforcing CI/CD test automation harnesses
• Direct experience providing Tier 3 operational support, after-hours callout support, and SLA-driven incident management for high-availability systems
• Proficiency in Python (following PEP 8 guidelines), C/C++ (following SEI CERT and Google C++ Style Guides), Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Bash scripting
• Direct hands-on experience with AWS cloud-native architecture, including AWS Fargate / ECS container orchestration, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, CloudWatch, and IAM/Secrets Manager
• Proficiency with Terraform for cloud infrastructure automation, Docker containerization, and container registry image security scanning
• Expertise designing test suites using Pytest, Gradle, CMake, and automated quality/security tools (e.g., Dependabot, AddressSanitizer, Ruff, Flake8, Black)
• Experience integrating geospatial tools and frameworks, including Esri ArcGIS Enterprise on Linux, FOSS4G open-source tools, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards (WMS, WFS), Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs), Zarr, GeoJSON, and NetCDF formats
• Expert knowledge of VLab GitLab, GitHub Actions, VLab Redmine ticketing, Git branching strategies (Conventional Branching), and automated pipeline security scanning
• Deep understanding of federal IT security standards (FISMA, NIST controls) and accessibility testing for WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508 compliance
• 10+ years

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