Owns the architecture and technical direction of an AI-enabled enterprise platform built with secure, cloud-native microservices. Leads technical execution, architecture, coding, code reviews, mentoring, release management, production support, and integration design. Partners with product and engineering stakeholders to translate requirements into milestones and deliverables. Designs AI application patterns, APIs, data flows, identity integrations, CI/CD practices, and secure deployments to Azure Kubernetes Service in Azure Government.
About Agile Defense
At Agile Defense we know that action defines the outcome and new challenges require new solutions. That’s why we always look to the future and embrace change with an unmovable spirit and the courage to build for what comes next.
Our vision is to bring adaptive innovation to support our nation's most important missions through the seamless integration of advanced technologies, elite minds, and unparalleled agility—leveraging a foundation of speed, flexibility, and ingenuity to strengthen and protect our nation’s vital interests.
Requisition #:
Job Title for Careers Page: Software Architect – AI-Enabled Enterprise Platform
Location: Remote (preferred local to the DMV area)
Clearance Level: Ability to obtain a Secret clearance
Required Certification(s): None
SUMMARY
Agile Defense is seeking a hands-on Software Architect to own the architecture and technical direction of Workforce, an AI-enabled enterprise application platform focused on secure, user-centered workflows, enterprise integrations, and cloud-native delivery. Workforce is built as a set of containerized microservices deployed to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) in Azure Government Community Cloud (GCC), combining modern web application development, API-driven services, AI-assisted capabilities, and secure deployment practices.
The Software Architect is the senior technical owner of the platform. This person sets architectural direction, leads the engineering team’s technical execution, serves as Release Manager for the platform’s multi-service release train, and partners with the Product Manager to turn roadmap priorities into executable plans. This is a hands-on role: the Software Architect is expected to stay close to the code, regularly designing, implementing, reviewing, and debugging software alongside the team.
JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Architecture and Technical Direction
- Own the architecture, technical direction, and engineering standards for the Workforce platform and its microservices.
- Define and document service boundaries, API contracts, data flows, integration patterns, and key technical decisions, including the tradeoffs behind them.
- Lead the design of the platform’s AI-enabled architecture, including tool calling, system instructions, context management, prompt and control flow design, and integration with LLM-based services.
- Design secure enterprise integrations, including identity, document workflows, collaboration tools, and external platform APIs.
- Identify and manage technical debt, platform risk, and architectural drift, making pragmatic decisions about when to refactor and when to ship.
Technical Leadership and Delivery
- Lead technical execution for the Workforce engineering team, including solution design, task breakdown, estimation, sequencing, and code review.
- Partner with the Product Manager to translate product goals, user workflows, and requirements into technical designs, milestones, and well-scoped engineering work.
- Establish and uphold standards for code quality, automated testing, documentation, and definition of done.
- Mentor engineers through design reviews, pairing, code reviews, and direct technical feedback.
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for engineering leadership, product, and customer stakeholders on status, risk, and technical tradeoffs.
Release Management and Operations
- Serve as Release Manager for the platform’s multi-service release train, coordinating release readiness, release notes, and release records.
- Represent the team in change control and release review processes, presenting changes, risk, and rollback plans for approval.
- Own production posture for the platform, including rollback decisions, incident triage, root cause follow-through, and post-release verification.
- Collaborate with platform and DevOps engineers on CI/CD pipelines, Helm-based deployments to AKS, observability, autoscaling, and performance testing.
Hands-On Engineering
- Contribute directly to the codebase, including feature implementation, critical-path work, integration work, and production fixes.
- Build and maintain full stack capabilities across modern web front ends and backend web APIs.
QUALIFICATIONS
Required Certifications
None required.
Education, Background, and Years of Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience building and maintaining production applications.
- 5+ years designing and owning production application architecture, including leading technical execution for an engineering team as a software architect, technical lead, or senior technical owner.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance.
ADDITIONAL SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS
Required Skills
- Strong hands-on coding ability in at least one object-oriented, strongly typed language such as Java, C#, TypeScript, Go, or Kotlin.
- Professional experience building both modern web front-end applications and backend web APIs, services, and integration layers.
- Demonstrated ownership of production application architecture across front-end, backend, data, and integration concerns.
- Experience planning and delivering work for a team, including breaking complex requirements into milestones and tasks and managing dependencies.
- Experience with structured release practices for distributed or multi-service systems, including versioning, change control, release coordination, and rollback.
- Strong understanding of API design, authentication and authorization patterns, data modeling, error handling, testing, and maintainability.
- Practical understanding of secure software development, including access control, data protection, dependency hygiene, and production readiness.
- Working knowledge of AI-first application patterns: tool calling, system instruction design, context management and retrieval grounding, and integrating LLM capabilities into a broader application architecture.
- Ability to onboard into a large, complex codebase quickly and become the technical authority with limited handoff.
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs, risk, and status to engineers, product stakeholders, and executive leadership.
Preferred Skills
- Experience with TypeScript, Node.js, and React.
- Experience with microservices, containerized applications, Kubernetes (AKS preferred), Helm, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience delivering in Azure Government, Azure GCC, or other compliance-constrained cloud environments.
- Experience with LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, LlamaIndex, OpenAI/Azure OpenAI APIs, or similar frameworks.
- Experience serving as Release Manager or participating in a formal Change Control Board.
- Experience integrating with Microsoft 365, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, or similar enterprise collaboration platforms.
- Experience with OIDC/OAuth2, Keycloak, Entra ID, or other identity providers.
- Experience designing applications that handle sensitive data, enterprise permissions, auditability, or compliance requirements.
- Familiarity with DevSecOps practices, APM and observability tooling, autoscaling, and production support.
- Experience with AI-enabled document workflows, search and summarization, workflow automation, or agentic application patterns.
- Experience on SaaS, enterprise, government, or secure internal platforms.
WORKING CONDITIONS
Environmental Conditions
Work is performed in a standard office or remote work environment with minimal exposure to health or safety hazards.
Strength Demands
Sedentary: exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally. Work involves sitting most of the time.
Physical Requirements
Prolonged periods of sitting and working at a computer. Ability to communicate clearly in person, by phone, and through video conferencing, and to read and interpret documents and on-screen information.
Our Core Values
Employees of Agile Defense are our number one priority, and the importance we place on our culture here is fundamental. Our culture is alive and evolving, but it always stays true to its roots. Here, you are valued as a family member, and we believe that we can accomplish great things together. Agile Defense has been highly successful in the past few years due to our employees and the culture we create together.
What makes us Agile? We call it the 6Hs, the values that define our culture and guide everything we do. Together, these values infuse vibrancy, integrity, and a tireless work ethic into advancing the most important national security and critical civilian missions. It's how we show up every day. It's who we are.
- Happy - Be Infectious. Happiness multiplies and creates a positive and connected environment where motivation and satisfaction have an outsized effect on everything we do.
- Helpful - Be Supportive. Being helpful is the foundation of teamwork, resulting in a supportive atmosphere where collaboration flourishes, and collective success is celebrated.
- Honest - Be Trustworthy. Honesty serves as our compass, ensuring transparent communication and ethical conduct, essential to who we are and the complex domains we support.
- Humble - Be Grounded. Success is not achieved alone, humility ensures a culture of mutual respect, encouraging open communication, and a willingness to learn from one another and take on any task.
- Hungry - Be Eager. Our hunger for excellence drives an insatiable appetite for innovation and continuous improvement, propelling us forward in the face of new and unprecedented challenges.
- Hustle - Be Driven. Hustle is reflected in our relentless work ethic, where we are each committed to going above and beyond to advance the mission and achieve success.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities
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