Principal Software Engineer, Lead (U.S. Air Force)
About Skylight
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Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services.
We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today’s digital world.
If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists.
The work we do matters.
About the job
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At Skylight, tech leads combine hands-on technical expertise with leadership across multiple teams. They set direction, guide engineering practices, and create the conditions for technical delivery that is secure, resilient, and scalable.
We’re building a modernized Team Awareness Kit (TAK) application for the U.S. Air Force that works in a decentralized communications environment. The first release centers on push-to-talk with auto-transcribed transmission logs, secure direct and group messaging, offline maps, and user registration and login. The work may expand into other projects in the same portfolio. It’s full end-to-end product delivery for a tactical user base.
You’ll set the technical direction for mapping and communication mobile apps that have to keep working when the network doesn’t, and you’ll stay hands-on in the code while you do it.
What to know going in
You’ll join an existing team that’s already building and shipping. The team relies on AI-assisted, spec-driven development, so you should be comfortable working that way and holding the output to a high bar. You’ll manage two software engineers to start.
In this role, you’ll also serve as a people manager. As a manager, you’ll keep growing in your craft and contributing to client work, while also taking on responsibility for the people you manage — their development, their performance, and the conditions that help them do their best work.
What you’ll do
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- Lead technical delivery of mobile and backend software for tactical users, from architecture decisions through implementation and code review
- Build secure applications that stay useful on degraded or disconnected networks, including real-time voice, messaging, and offline maps
- Partner with product, design, and platform and security teams to resolve dependencies and explain technical tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Shape how the team uses AI-assisted development, pairing spec-driven practices with independent verification, automated testing, and security review
- Build strong working relationships with the people you manage and actively support their d...
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