Lead Full Stack Engineer- DoW
Job Location: The Pentagon/Washington DC
Security Clearance: Active Secret clearance required (Interim ok)
Travel Requirement: Up to 10%
Citizenship: US Citizenship required
On-Site Requirement: Fully onsite in DC area (Pentagon and/or client site in DC)
The Department of War is fielding AI-enabled decision support at a speed the defense industry has never seen — and Maven Smart System is at the center of it. Sherpa 6 builds mission-critical software that puts operational data in the hands of the people who need it, from the Pentagon to the tactical edge. Our systems already run on 100,000+ fielded endpoints across the Joint Force.
We're hiring a Lead Full Stack Engineer to own a greenfield application that works alongside the Maven Smart System ecosystem — built for senior DoW leaders who use it to make real decisions. You'll work directly with the mission owner at the Pentagon, lead a small product squad, and shape the architecture from the first commit. No legacy codebase. No layers of program bureaucracy between you and the user. Your users are in the building, and you'll see your work in their hands within weeks, not years.
Responsibilities:
- Tech lead for a product squad—own technical direction, estimation, sprint planning, and on-time feature delivery.
- Implement scalable, secure, and observable system architectures (APIs, services, data models, caching, integrations).
- Build high-quality front-end experiences in React, and robust back-end services in Node.js/TypeScript, backed by PostgreSQL.
- Model schemas, write optimized SQL, tune queries, and manage migrations, all with an eye toward data integrity and growth.
- Code and test software based upon software specifications and designs.
- Analyze and study complex system requirements.
- Design software tools and subsystems to support software reuse and domain software development.
- Use sound software engineering principles to ensure that developed code is modifiable, efficient, reliable, understandable, and fault tolerant.
- Provide software process management and control throughout the coding portion of the software development process.