Digital Consultants seeks a
Senior Software Engineer (Subject Matter Expert Software Developer, Applications) to support FEMA Artificial Intelligence Support Services. The role focuses on designing, developing, integrating, deploying, and sustaining secure, production-quality full-stack applications and engineering capabilities that enable FEMA AI solutions across approved cloud, platform-as-a-service, software-as-a-service, and enterprise technology environments.
Duties to include:- Design, develop, implement, maintain, and improve full-stack software applications and supporting processes that deliver FEMA AI solutions across FEMA-approved enterprise cloud and technology platforms.
- Translate FEMA program needs, customer pain points, system requirements, data usage, work processes, and user journeys into secure, scalable, maintainable, and production-ready technical solutions.
- Develop front-end, middleware, and back-end components using industry-standard frameworks and languages, including PERN technologies (PostgreSQL, Express.js, React, and Node.js), and develop infrastructure as code using Terraform.
- Apply software architecture and engineering best practices to determine system specifications, technical requirements, integration patterns, data flows, security boundaries, and deployment approaches.
- Build, configure, and sustain applications supporting AI-enabled use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation chatbots, document processing and translation, predictive dashboards, analytics tools, fraud detection, routing, and workflow automation.
- Integrate internally developed and externally developed solutions into FEMA enterprise engineering patterns and approved hosting environments; refactor applications when needed for secure onboarding and operational use.
- Develop, implement, and maintain CI/CD pipelines using FEMA-approved tools and manage source code through Git-based repositories, configuration management, and version-control standards.
- Integrate observability capabilities into software engineering efforts to support performance monitoring, operational troubleshooting, reliability, and continuous improvement.
- Direct or support system installation, configuration, releases, upgrades, maintenance, testing, debugging, and production deployment activities.
- Conduct systems analysis to improve performance; identify problem areas; recommend changes to software, architecture, policies, procedures, and operating practices; and summarize development and service issues for stakeholders.
- Collaborate with product owners, program managers, AI solution architects, AI developers/engineers, data scientists, cloud engineers, security personnel, customer program offices, and other development teams using Agile/Scrum and Joint Development Team practices.
- Participate in sprint planning, demonstrations, reviews, retrospectives, backlog refinement, technical workshops, and other Agile ceremonies; deliver work in accordance with sprint schedules and FEMA System/Software Engineering Life Cycle processes.
- Develop and maintain architecture documentation, build plans, operating plans, security plans, customer guides, technical standards, implementation artifacts, test documentation, and other version-controlled work products.
- Support access-control and permission designs for developers, engineers, testers, operators, and stakeholders using role-based access principles and government and industry best practices.
- Support security boundary and Authority to Operate activities, data-management controls, risk and issue mitigation, and delivery of applications in controlled, secure environments.
- Ensure developed or modified information and communications technology complies with applicable Section 508 accessibility requirements and provide required accessibility testing artifacts when assigned.
- Provide technical input to project status, performance, quality, customer interaction, and system-of-record documentation, and conduct demonstrations of work in progress to obtain stakeholder feedback.
- Provide technical leadership and subject-matter expertise to engineering teams and stakeholders while maintaining continuity of support during normal and, when required, extended operating hours.
Requirements
- Clearance: No security clearance is identified in the SOO. The candidate must be a U.S. citizen and receive a favorably adjudicated FEMA public trust suitability determination before entry on duty. The position may require access to sensitive but unclassified information and FEMA information systems.
- Certifications: Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate (AZ-204) or similar is highly desired.
- Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related field.
- Experience: Five to ten years of relevant experience.
- Extensive software development, scripting, and technical project-management experience.
- Experience applying Scrum and Agile software-development methodologies.
- In-depth knowledge of relational databases.
- Excellent analytical, systems-analysis, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
- Hands-on experience developing applications using multiple software frameworks.
- Proficiency with software-engineering tools and software architecture.
- Proficiency in full-stack development and programming approaches, including PERN (PostgreSQL, Express.js, React, and Node.js).
- Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform.
- Expertise managing CI/CD pipelines and Git-based source-code management.
- Experience integrating observability tools into software-engineering efforts.
- Experience directing system installation and upgrades and following the software development lifecycle.
- Ability to determine system specifications and requirements, evaluate information needs and workflows, and recommend performance and process improvements.
- Ability to collect, analyze, summarize, and communicate development and service issues to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Physical Requirements: Requested Skills: - Experience engineering AI-enabled applications such as RAG chatbots, virtual assistants, document-processing solutions, predictive dashboards, analytics applications, or workflow-automation tools.
- Experience developing or integrating applications in one or more FEMA-relevant platforms, such as Microsoft Azure/Azure AI Foundry/Azure OpenAI, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft 365, ServiceNow, or customer relationship management platforms.
- Experience onboarding or refactoring externally developed applications for enterprise cloud environments, shared services, or established engineering patterns.
- Familiarity with federal cloud security, FedRAMP-authorized services, security boundaries, Authority to Operate processes, role-based access control, and secure data-handling practices.
- Experience supporting Section 508/WCAG accessibility validation for web applications, electronic forms, dashboards, documents, and other ICT deliverables.
- Experience producing technical architecture, build, operating, security, testing, deployment, and customer-support documentation in a configuration-managed repository.
- Experience working with government product owners and multidisciplinary engineering teams in a Joint Development Team or comparable collaborative delivery model.
- Familiarity with human-centered design, UI/UX practices, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, prototyping, testing, debugging, and browser development tools.
Compensation and Benefits: Salary range: $140,000 - 180,000 annually, depending on experience.
The company offers the following benefits to permanent, full-time employees:
- Paid Time Off (PTO)
- Group health plans
- Income protection and supplemental benefits
- 401(k) plan with company matching
- Health Savings Account (HSA)
- Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
- Pet insurance options
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
