Niyam is seeking an experienced Technical Lead to support one of our federal clients. The Technical Lead will provide technical leadership across full-stack engineering and applied AI, guiding the design, development, integration, testing, and deployment of modern web and mobile applications. The role will lead the integration of AI and machine learning capabilities, including virtual assistants and chatbots, AI-powered search and recommendations, AI-enabled accessibility features, and AI-assisted developer tooling for code generation, testing, debugging, and refactoring. The Technical Lead will drive solutions from architecture and design through development, unit and integration testing, and production deployment using Cloud CI/CD and DevSecOps practices. This role requires strong full-stack development experience combined with the ability to lead technical teams, establish engineering best practices, and translate emerging AI capabilities into secure, scalable, and user-focused solutions. This is a hybrid position, and will require onsite to the client location in Ashburn, VA up to 3-4 days/week. This position is associated with a proposal submission and is contingent upon contract award. Candidates selected through this process may be considered for employment should the contract be awarded to our organization. Roles and Responsibilities - Own and lead end-to-end solution architecture, ensuring technical solutions align with business, product, user, and mission objectives. - Establish, evolve, and enforce architectural principles, technical standards, design patterns, and engineering guardrails. - Lead technology evaluation and selection, system design, application architecture, and integration strategies across web, mobile, cloud, and AI-enabled solutions. - Provide hands-on technical leadership throughout the software development lifecycle, including designing, developing, and reviewing critical application components, APIs, integrations, and shared services. - Lead the integration of AI and machine learning capabilities into applications, including virtual assistants, chatbots, AI-powered search and recommendations, accessibility features, and AI-assisted development and testing tools. - Translate complex technical requirements into scalable, incremental, and shippable solutions while supporting the development of technical backlogs, user stories, and solution increments. - Collaborate closely with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, developers, architects, security, platform, and operations teams to ensure effective Agile delivery. - Provide technical direction during sprint planning, execution, reviews, and demonstrations, helping teams resolve technical challenges and make informed design decisions. - Guide architectural decision-making and maintain appropriate technical documentation, including architecture diagrams, technical specifications, and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs). - Conduct code and design reviews to ensure adherence to coding standards, architectural principles, security requirements, and software engineering best practices. - Ensure solutions meet non-functional requirements for security, performance, scalability, reliability, maintainability, accessibility, and operational readiness. - Promote clean code, automated testing, CI/CD, DevSecOps, infrastructure automation, and other modern software development and delivery practices. - Identify, assess, and proactively reduce technical debt, architectural risk, and technical dependencies that could impact delivery or long-term maintainability. - Mentor and coach developers on architecture, design patterns, coding practices, emerging technologies, and effective use of AI-assisted development tools. - Communicate technical direction, architectural decisions, risks, dependencies, and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Support production readiness, deployment activities, incident resolution, troubleshooting, and ongoing operational stability of delivered solutions. - Drive continuous improvement across architecture, code quality, development practices, automation, and delivery processes. - Support technical demonstrations, proof-of-concepts, and evaluations of proposed solutions and technologies for internal and client stakeholders. Qualifications and Education Requirements - US Citizenship with ability to successfully complete a federal background investigation. - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or related field (equivalent practical experience may be considered). - 10+ years of professional full stack software development experience, including recent, hands-on work across frontend, backend, and API layers. - Must be able to work a hybrid schedule 3-4 days/week in Ashburn, VA. - Demonstrated experience with two or more of the following: Flutter, Angular (2+), Spring Boot, Java, Python (Django), JavaScript/TypeScript, Dart, native iOS (Swift) or native Android. - Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into production applications (for example, chatbots or virtual assistants, recommendation or search features, computer vision or NLP-based accessibility tooling, or AI-assisted development pipelines). - Working knowledge of relational databases such as PostgreSQL or Oracle SQL, and RESTful and/or SOAP API integration in a multi-system environment. - Experience with Agile/Scrum software delivery, CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployment (Kubernetes), and automated testing frameworks (for example, Selenium). - Familiarity with federal software delivery standards, including Section 508 accessibility, DevSecOps practices, and IT security fundamentals (encryption, PII handling, vulnerability remediation). Preferred Skills - One or more current AI/ML certifications, such as AWS Certified Machine Learning, Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate, Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer, or a recognized generative AI/LLM engineering certification. - Prior experience supporting DHS, CBP, or another federal agency. - Experience with chatbot or conversational AI frameworks (Python backend, React frontend, Angular-based training dashboard). - SAFe Practitioner, Certified Scrum Developer, or equivalent Agile certification. - Experience with Firebase, Gradle, or mobile app store deployment pipelines (Apple Enterprise/Developer, Google Play). Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.