Government and Infrastructure - Digital Engineering - Application Modernization Engineering Manager

EY•McLean, VA

3d•$142,600 - $297,200•Hybrid

About The Position

Our Digital Engineering practice is helping organizations solve complex problems through purpose-led transformation. To achieve this mission, a diverse and talented team from around the globe are creating innovative digital experiences that help our clients succeed and thrive. The Application Modernization Senior Engineer provides the hands-on engineering judgment behind the program's rationalization and modernization recommendations. This role validates and deepens automated assessment results by reading and evaluating legacy code, confirming dependencies and data flows, assessing technical debt and cloud readiness, and recommending the right disposition and modernization pathway for each application. The evidence and recommendations produced by Application Modernization Engineers form the core of the rationalization deliverables and the sequenced modernization roadmap, and they set the technical baseline for the modernization waves that follow.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, information systems, computer engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
U.S. citizenship and clearance-eligible: must be able to obtain and maintain a federal security clearance.
6–10+ years of software engineering experience, including leading application portfolio assessments, rationalization or modernization programs and leading engineering teams in federal or large enterprise environments.
Professional software engineering experience in C#/.NET and/or Java, including maintaining, enhancing or modernizing existing applications.
Strong SQL skills and experience with relational databases such as Oracle, SQL Server or PostgreSQL.
Demonstrated ability to quickly read, understand and assess unfamiliar or poorly documented codebases.
Solid understanding of web application architecture, APIs, authentication and deployment.
Git-based development and version control.
Clear, structured written documentation skills
Must be comfortable working in-person as needed in the Washington, DC area

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with AWS and/or Azure across compute, networking, storage, identity and monitoring services.
Infrastructure-as-Code experience with Terraform (or Bicep/CloudFormation).
Experience with containers (Docker) and working knowledge of Kubernetes.
Networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, firewalls and private connectivity.
Linux and Windows Server administration.
Scripting in PowerShell, Bash or Python.
Expertise in developing written and visual communication products
Excellent written and oral communication skills
Azure Government or AWS GovCloud experience; FedRAMP High environments.
Configuration management with Ansible.
Production Kubernetes experience (AKS, EKS or OpenShift).
Cloud cost management (FinOps) practices.
Certifications such as Microsoft AZ-104 or AZ-305, AWS Solutions Architect (Associate or Professional), Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or HashiCorp Terraform Associate.

Responsibilities

Perform targeted technical validation of automated assessment results for assigned applications: confirm component inventories, technology versions, dependencies, interfaces and data flows, and resolve gaps, ambiguities and false positives.
Read and assess application source code across .NET Framework and .NET (C#), Java (monolithic and early service-based), ColdFusion, JavaScript front ends, stored procedures and batch or scheduled jobs.
Evaluate code quality, maintainability, test coverage, framework and library currency, end-of-support exposure and technical debt using both tooling (for example, SonarQube) and expert review.
Assess database design and usage across Oracle, SQL Server and PostgreSQL, including tightly coupled and shared databases, cross-application data access and replication.
Assess architecture and cloud readiness, including statefulness, configuration management, session handling, authentication patterns and hosting dependencies.
Identify functional overlap and redundant business capabilities across applications to support consolidation analysis.
Score applications against defined rationalization criteria (business value, technical condition, risk and cost) and recommend a disposition (retain, retire, consolidate or modernize) and a modernization pathway (rehost, replatform, refactor, rearchitect, replace or retire).
Develop target-state direction, effort and complexity estimates, dependencies and sequencing constraints that feed the modernization roadmap and wave plan.
Document findings and supporting evidence in a traceable form suitable for client review and acceptance, and contribute to formal deliverables.
Participate in working sessions with application owners, developers and operations staff to confirm findings and close knowledge gaps.
Feed confirmed patterns and corrections back to the AI & Automation team to improve the accuracy of automated analysis.
Lead the modernization engineering team, coordinating the work of application modernization, cloud, DevSecOps and integration engineers.
Own the technical quality and completeness of the rationalization deliverables: validated findings, recommendations, target-state direction and the modernization roadmap and wave plan.
Define and calibrate the rationalization scoring framework and decision criteria with client stakeholders.
Serve as the primary technical point of contact for client application and architecture stakeholders and present recommendations to client leadership.
Manage schedule, risks and dependencies across the 90-day effort in coordination with the AI & Automation lead.
Recruit, mentor and develop engineers, and contribute to the staffing plan as the program scales.