Technical Architect in Lakeside, California at Agile Six Applications Inc

Agile Six is a people-first, remote-work company that serves shoulder-to-shoulder with federal agencies to find innovative, human-centered solutions. We build better by putting people first. We are animated by our core values of Purpose, Wholeness, Trust, Self-Management and Inclusion. We deliver our solutions in autonomous teams of self-managed professionals (no managers here!) who genuinely care about each other and the work. We know thats our companys purpose and that we can only achieve it by supporting a culture where people feel valued, self-managed, and love to come to work.

The role

Agile Six is looking for a Technical Architect to join a cross-functional team working with the Department of Veterans Affairs on an integrated patient portal experience on VA.gov. The goal of the My HealtheVet (MHV) team is to improve Veterans digital experience by giving them one place to easily manage their VA health care, community care, disability benefits, and other information. In this role, you will lead the evolution and maintenance of the architecture, leveraging Ruby on Rails, Git, React, React Native, JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, GraphQL, FHIR, and DevSecOps practices. You will balance modern software architecture patterns, legacy system integration, modularity, scalability, and accessibility while relentlessly focusing on improving Veterans' experience with digital healthcare tools. You will also bring strong interpersonal, leadership, and collaboration skills to maintain an environment of effective delivery within large-scale, cross-functional agile teams, ensuring technical solutions align with user needs, accessibility, and the VA's mission.

Please note that this is a Key Personnel role, as stipulated by our contract, considered "essential to work performance". The resumes of Key Personnel are subject to government review and approval, and any changes to Key Personnel (such as voluntary or involuntary separation) may require government oversight.

Responsibilities

• Lead and contribute as part of a cross-functional Agile team to design, develop, and maintain web and mobile applications using React, React Native, TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, Git, and related technologies, applying modern software architecture principles and best practices
• Lead software architecture and design to support MHV project needs, leveraging best practices including modularity, scalability, accessibility, and seamless EHR integration
• Align engineering best practices across multiple delivery teams (which may include establishing an Engineering Community of Practice within the contract, and/or ensuring consistent engineering standards are met across the portfolio)
• Establish strong relationship with your VA counterparts
• Leverage, evangelize, and support the adoption of AI-powered coding tools such as GitHub Copilot, as well as other enabling technologies such as MCP servers and edge computing to rapidly implement features, identify and fix bugs, validate ideas, and enhance team practices
• Leverage emerging technologies and practices around DevOps, cloud services, automation tools, etc. where appropriate in the course of daily work to improve efficiency and/or quality
• Lead by taking initiative on challenging tasks, supporting and mentoring teammates, and fostering a collaborative, positive environment that enables successful delivery
• Collaborate with other teammates through code reviews, pair coding, mentorship, training, knowledge sharing, etc.
• Write automated unit tests and integration tests, and assist in manual testing as needed
• As an agile team member, support the team and Product Owner to ensure that work is accurately described and appropriately prioritized, including providing input into user story acceptance criteria and sizing
• Support the practice of engineering within the larger company as needed through activities such as:
  • Assisting in outreach, recruitment, and hiring efforts
  • Occasionally participating in or otherwise supporting business development efforts, including code or design challenges, writing or reviewing proposal responses, etc.
  • Participating in communities of practice
• We expect the responsibilities of this position to shift and grow organically over time, in response to considerations such as the unique strengths and interests of the selected candidate and other team members and an evolving understanding of the delivery environment.

Basic qualifications

• 7+ years of experience as a software engineer
• 5+ years as a software architect, tech lead, or other senior engineering leader.
• Demonstrated experience leading the maintenance and enhancement of complex web and mobile applications across the entire technology stack, using modern languages and frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Git, Typescript, JavaScript frameworks (React, React Native), component-based design systems, REST and GraphQL APIs, and scalable architecture patterns
• Demonstrated experience leveraging and supporting the adoption of AI tools and services such as GitHub Copilot or similar, to improve code quality, accelerate development, and enhance team practices, with a strong willingness to integrate AI thoughtfully to improve outcomes.
• Experience with DevOps processes and tools
• Demonstrated experience with Agile teams, fostering an Agile mindset, facilitating collaboration, and guiding teams in applying Agile principles to deliver value iteratively
• Experience fostering team practices that prioritize writing automated tests to validate software and build behavior using testing frameworks such as React Testing Library and RSpec
• Expert understanding of architectural patterns, software development principles, and system design, with the ability to apply and guide their use across front-end and back-end systems
• Experience working in many different areas of the software stack and solving a variety of engineering problems
• Ability to work independently on high complexity tasks, and to collaborate as it makes sense for the problem and the work
• Experience in an open-source, collaborative development environment
• Has lived and worked in the United States for 3 out of the last 5 years
• Some of our clients may request or require travel from time to time. If this is a concern for you, we encourage you to apply and discuss it with us at your initial interview

Additional desired qualifications

• Familiarity with the vets-gov and vets-api codebases, and with the US Web Design System
• Experience building and/or training AI services, such as preparing data for utilization in AI services, creating vector databases, building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, or training models.
• Experience working in or with government agencies, especially the VA

Salary and Sixer Benefits

As a small organization and government contractor, the roles we hire for depend on the contracts we hold and the funding available. Salaries at Agile Six are tied to predefined peer groups based on the staffing plans we sell to clients. People in the same peer group are paid within 2.5% of the peer groups salary mean, even when their project work differs.

We post fixed, non-negotiable salaries so that you know what to expect, and to remove the bias and inequity that often show up in salary negotiations. We also periodically raise the salary of all Sixers to keep pace with market conditions.

For more information about our Pay and Equity practices, please contact our Recruitment team.

The salary for this position is $154,931.

Our benefits are designed to reinforce our core values of Wholeness, Self Management and Inclusion. The following benefits are available to all employees. We respect that only you know what balance means for your life and season. While we offer support from coaches, we expect you to own your wholeness, show up for work whole, and go home to your family the same. You will be seen, heard and valued. We expect you to offer the same for your colleagues, be kind (not controlling), be caring (not directive) and ready to participate in a state of flow. We mean it when we say We build better by putting people first.

All Sixers Enjoy:

• Self-managed work/life balance and flexibility
• Competitive salary
• Employee Stock Ownership (ESOP) for all employees!
• 401K matching
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Employer paid short and long term disability insurance
• Employer paid life insurance
• Self-managed and generous paid time off
• Paid federal holidays and two floating holidays
• Paid parental leave
• Self-managed professional development spending
• Self-managed wellness days

Hiring practices

Agile Six is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any factor protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.

Note: We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. Unfortunately, we are unable to sponsor visas at this time.

If you need assistance or reasonable accommodation in applying for any of these positions, please reach out to careers@agile6.com. We want to ensure you have the ability to apply for any position at Agile Six.

Please read and respond to the application questions carefully. Interviews are conducted on a rolling basis until the position has been filled.

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Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/protected veterans