Principal Full Stack Engineer

Bixal•Fairfax, VA

5h•$145,000 - $155,000•Remote

About The Position

Bixal is seeking a Principal Full Stack Engineer to lead technical delivery on a federal platform supporting governmentwide regulatory planning and review. The systems are relied upon by federal agencies, oversight offices, and the public and must remain available 24/7/365 while a modern replacement is developed alongside them. The role covers both sustaining the existing Java, Spring, and Oracle applications and designing and building their replacement on cloud, container, and DevOps foundations. The engineer will help shape the replacement platform’s target architecture, integrations with related federal systems, and the transition of users and data away from the legacy stack. The role requires a hands-on technical leader who can maintain a production system while building a new one, set technical direction, mentor engineers, and work with the Project Manager, designers, security lead, client technical leads, and product owner. This is a full-time position on an awarded contract with a 12-month base period and two 12-month option periods. The role is remote from anywhere in the USA. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the US; Bixal does not provide visa sponsorship. The position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a favorable Public Trust determination. The salary range is $145,000–$155,000, with most offers tending to land near the midpoint. The role has a fixed duration, and Bixal states it will keep employees informed about contract updates and new opportunities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
At least 10 years of professional software engineering experience, including technical leadership of development teams.
Deep hands-on experience with Java and the Spring Framework, including building and maintaining production web applications.
Strong experience with relational databases, preferably Oracle, including data modeling, SQL, and performance tuning.
Experience designing and deploying cloud-native, containerized applications, such as Docker and Kubernetes, on a major cloud platform.
Experience building CI/CD pipelines and automated testing with tools such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins.
Experience designing RESTful APIs and integrating multiple systems.
Experience modernizing or replacing legacy systems while keeping production stable.
Working knowledge of secure coding (OWASP), accessibility (Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA), and Linux server environments.
Experience working in Agile/Scrum delivery environments.
Polished communication skills, including experience presenting technical options and trade-offs to clients and non-technical stakeholders.
Ability to obtain and maintain a favorable Public Trust determination in support of a federal government contract.
Must be legally authorized to work in the US; visa sponsorship is not provided.

Nice To Haves

Experience delivering for federal government clients, especially GSA or other civilian agencies.
Experience integrating with Login.gov or other federated identity and single sign-on services.
Experience with cloud.gov, AWS, or Azure, and related certifications.
Experience building workflow, case management, or document management systems.
Familiarity with federal regulatory processes, such as rulemaking or Paperwork Reduction Act information collections.
Experience with monitoring tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, or Loki.
Experience supporting systems through FISMA Moderate ATO processes.

Responsibilities

Serve as program technical lead, set engineering standards, review code and architecture, and guide technical decisions across existing and new systems.
Lead the Target Solution Architecture and Analysis of Alternatives for the replacement platform, assessing integration, containerized deployment, DevOps efficiency, case and workflow management, and security.
Design, prototype, build, and deploy applications on cloud, container, and DevOps foundations; maintain and tune existing Java, Spring, Tomcat, and Oracle applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Design reusable platform capabilities, including user access, workflow routing, document management, audit history, reporting, notifications, and public-facing APIs.
Lead triage, analysis, and resolution of priority defects affecting functionality, availability, security, or data integrity.
Design and deliver approved enhancements driven by new laws, executive orders, policy changes, and agency needs.
Build integrations with related federal systems, including eRulemaking, FDMS, Regulations.gov, the Federal Register, and Login.gov.
Plan and support data migration, cutover, and decommissioning of legacy capabilities.
Support 99.5% uptime through patches, upgrades, performance monitoring, alerting, and rapid response to production issues.
Identify, prioritize, and reduce technical debt, including outdated code and unsupported libraries.
Own CI/CD pipelines that build with a single command, deploy automatically from version control without downtime, and allow immediate rollback when needed.
Maintain the contract quality bar: at least 90% test coverage, zero linting errors, zero accessibility errors, and no unresolved medium- or high-severity security findings.
Build Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility and secure coding practices into the work from the start.
Lead functional, integration, regression, performance, accessibility, and security testing, and support user acceptance testing.
Keep dependencies, licenses, inline documentation, and system diagrams current.
Mentor engineers and review their work to help develop team skills and consistency.
Work in an agile process with sprint cycles and contribute to planning, estimation, and roadmaps.
Brief client technical leads and the product owner on technical options, risks, and recommendations.
Perform other relevant duties as assigned and qualified or trained to perform.