Job Title: Senior Full Stack Developer (Hybrid/On-Site)

Location: Suitland, MD

Company: BLN24

Position Overview:
BLN24 is seeking a hands-on Senior Full Stack Developer to support the U.S. Census Bureau in sustaining and modernizing applications that deliver critical economic data to the public. This role combines full-stack software engineering, Linux and on-premises infrastructure experience, data-oriented development, automated testing, and legacy modernization.

The ideal candidate is curious about how the current system works, willing to investigate root causes, and comfortable working within Census IT constraints. You will help reduce technical debt, support migration to RHEL 10 on bare-metal infrastructure, and deliver secure, maintainable solutions across the application stack. This is a working technical role: success requires someone who can think strategically, make sound engineering decisions, and personally dive into the code, configuration, testing, and troubleshooting.

How You Work:

• Problem-first and tool-agnostic. You can abstract the problem, evaluate constraints and tradeoffs, and select the right approach rather than forcing a preferred tool or framework.
• Grounded in engineering fundamentals. You may use AI-assisted tools responsibly, but you can design, code, test, review, and troubleshoot without relying on AI as a substitute for technical understanding.
• Curious and investigative. You seek to understand current system behavior, technical debt, operational pain points, and the reasons behind existing design decisions.
• Hands-on and accountable. You are willing to roll up your sleeves, work through ambiguity, and carry solutions from analysis through implementation and support.
• Independent and collaborative. You can own work with limited direction while communicating clearly and contributing effectively within a cross-functional team.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, test, modernize, and maintain full-stack applications using Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and modern frontend technologies.
• Assess legacy applications and technical debt; define and implement incremental modernization, refactoring, dependency, and compatibility strategies aligned with the migration to RHEL 10 bare-metal environments.
• Administer, configure, deploy, and troubleshoot applications and supporting services in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Linux-based, on-premises environments.
• Automate infrastructure and application configuration using Ansible or comparable configuration-management approaches.
• Develop and maintain RESTful APIs, backend services, data-processing components, and PostgreSQL queries or data models.
• Build responsive, usable frontend experiences using Vue.js, React, Angular, or comparable frameworks, with attention to sound UI/UX practices.
• Create and maintain automated unit, integration, and end-to-end frontend tests using tools such as Playwright or comparable testing suites.
• Use GitLab for source control, code review, issue tracking, collaborative workflows, and CI/CD pipeline execution.
• Apply secure coding, performance, reliability, observability, and maintainability practices throughout the software lifecycle.
• Investigate complex defects and production issues across application, operating-system, infrastructure, and data layers; identify root causes and implement durable fixes.
• Collaborate with developers, data scientists, analysts, product owners, infrastructure teams, and Census stakeholders to translate mission needs and technical constraints into working solutions.
• Produce clear technical documentation, participate in code and design reviews, and help improve team engineering standards and practices.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent relevant education and professional experience.
• At least 6 years of professional software-development experience, including substantial hands-on full-stack development responsibility.
• Strong Python and JavaScript development skills, including experience building and maintaining production applications.
• Experience with at least one modern frontend framework such as Vue.js, React, or Angular, together with practical UI/UX implementation skills.
• Linux administration and IT infrastructure experience in on-premises or bare-metal environments; practical experience with RHEL or a comparable enterprise Linux distribution.
• Experience modernizing legacy applications, reducing technical debt, refactoring code, upgrading dependencies, or resolving operating-system and platform compatibility issues.
• A solid foundation in data science or data-oriented software development using open-source languages, libraries, and development practices.
• Experience with Git-based development workflows; GitLab experience strongly preferred.
• Experience creating automated tests, including unit tests and browser-based or frontend tests; Playwright or comparable experience preferred.
• Experience with infrastructure or configuration management tools such as Ansible.
• Experience with RESTful APIs, relational databases, and SQL; PostgreSQL experience preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze ambiguous technical problems, compare solution options, and make pragmatic decisions within operational and customer constraints.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team.
• Experience working in an Agile delivery environment.
• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance

Preferred Qualifications:

• Direct experience supporting RHEL major-version upgrades or migrations, especially migration to RHEL 10 in bare-metal environments.
• Experience with geospatial, GIS, or mapping technologies such as PostGIS, GeoPandas, OpenLayers, Leaflet, QGIS, ArcGIS, or comparable tools.
• Experience with data visualization libraries such as D3.js or comparable open-source visualization frameworks.
• Experience with GitLab CI/CD, containerization, or container runtimes such as Docker or Podman.
• Experience supporting mission-critical data products or applications in a federal or similarly regulated environment.
• Active Census Public Trust clearance.

What Success Looks Like
Within this role, success means understanding the existing environment before prescribing a solution; delivering working, well-tested improvements; reducing technical debt without disrupting mission operations; and becoming a trusted technical partner who can move fluidly between code, data, infrastructure, testing, and team collaboration.

What BLN24 brings to the Game:
BLN24 benefits are game changing. We like our team to play hard and that means they need to be taken care of - physically, financially, and emotionally. We make sure to keep them in the game by giving them access to generous medical, dental, and vision plans.

• You can join one of the fastest growing companies headquartered in the Washington DC Metro Area. We give you the opportunity to work in different sectors, so you have the chance at variety while maintaining stability.
• Flexibility at BLN24 allows each individual the opportunity to balance quality work and their personal lives. Depending on projects, we allow remote working opportunities so you can always be in the game no matter where you call home.