5+ years of professional software development experience
Experience owning a production application end-to-end
Hands-on experience with Django applications including models and ORM
Proficient in PostgreSQL SQL and schema changes
Strong debugging skills in unfamiliar codebases
Fluent with Git in a shared repository
Ability to work well in a mixed federal and contractor team
Responsibilities
Set technical direction for application architecture and performance
Lead incident triage and root-cause analysis for production issues
Design data pipelines and integrations with document stores
Write runbooks and onboarding notes for team continuity
Fix bugs and deliver enhancements in Django applications
Identify and resolve performance issues in code and queries
Write and tune PostgreSQL queries and migrations
Benefits
Hybrid work environment with on-site requirements
Opportunity to work on critical applications for the National Library of Medicine
Engagement with a small, collaborative team of federal staff and contractors
Potential for professional growth through mentoring mid-level hires
Involvement in diverse projects across the NLM
Full Job Description
Job Title: SeniorPython/Django Developer (Senior) Company:Quotient, INC. (A VTG Company) Location: Hybrid Bethesda, MD 3-5 days per week Contingency: Public Trust Security Clearance (Ability to obtain and maintain) Position Type: Full-Time Employee Type: FTE
Position Summary We are recruiting a senior Python/Django developer for the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The developer will work on production Django and PostgreSQL applications, including MeSH, where reliability and performance are critical. You will be embedded in a small team of federal staff and contractors. The ideal candidate is a proven, self-directed developer who has owned production systems end-to-end, sets technical approaches, and can be consulted by federal staff and peers. The role requires working on-site in Bethesda, MD 3-5 days per week and obtaining a Public Trust background investigation.Day-to-Day Duties and Responsibilities
Technical ownership: set direction for an application's architecture, performance and data model; make and document the tradeoffs.
Production lead: run incident triage and root-cause analysis; decide what ships, when, and with what rollback plan.
Data and integration: design pipelines, ETL and integrations with search and document stores (e.g., Elasticsearch, MongoDB) where projects need them.
Continuity: write the runbooks and onboarding notes that keep the team from depending on one person, and mentor/bring mid-level hires up to speed.
Application support: fix bugs, deliver enhancements and handle production issues in NLM's Django applications.
Performance and reliability: find and fix slow queries, inefficient code and fragile areas; improve tests and monitoring.
Database work: write and tune PostgreSQL queries, migrations and data changes safely.
Leave it better: improve code, tests and documentation beyond the ticket.
Cross-project support: pick up work on other NLM projects and learn new codebases quickly.
Front end as needed: make changes in Angular, Vue or React when a feature requires it.
Minimum Qualifications
Able to work on-site in Bethesda, MD 3-5 days per week.
Able to obtain a Public Trust background investigation.
5+ years of professional software development experience.
Experience owning a production application end to end, including performance work on large datasets and leading incident response.
Hands-on experience building and maintaining real Django applications, including models, views, ORM queries, migrations and tests.
Comfortable writing PostgreSQL SQL, reading query plans and making schema changes safely.
Solid object-oriented design and common design patterns; ability to write code that processes complex, nested data structures.
Strong debugging skills; can trace a problem through an unfamiliar codebase to its cause.
Fluent with Git branching, rebasing and squashing in a shared repository.
Good judgment about production changes, including testing, review, and rollback plans.
Works well on a mixed federal and contractor team and explains tradeoffs plainly.
Preferred Qualifications
Front end experience with Angular, Vue or React; TypeScript and JavaScript; Node, Express and npm.
Functional and event-driven programming (promises, streaming, reactive programming).
Experience with search and document stores such as Elasticsearch and MongoDB.
Experience with data pipelines, ETL and handling varied file formats.
PostgreSQL performance tuning (indexing, query optimization, large datasets).
Testing and CI practice (pytest, coverage, automated pipelines).
REST API design and maintenance.
Linux, shell scripting, Docker and basic deployment.
AWS or a comparable cloud platform.
NumPy, Keras or other data-science libraries.
Familiarity with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), other medical terminologies, linked data, controlled vocabularies, or library and biomedical data.
Federal or government work, or long-lived production systems.
A public GitHub profile, technical blog or project portfolio.
