Senior Full Stack Developer

Pantheon Data • Reston, VA

1d • $145,000 - $200,000 • Remote

About The Position

Pantheon Data is seeking a hands-on Senior Full Stack Software Engineer (AI-First) to design, build, integrate, and maintain modern software systems for government and commercial technology programs. This senior individual-contributor role uses agentic coding harnesses such as Claude Code or OpenAI Codex as the primary development workflow. The engineer writes specifications, directs and supervises coding agents, and verifies their output while retaining ownership of design, correctness, and quality. The role requires strong conventional software engineering judgment to review generated code critically, identify defects or unnecessary complexity, and decide when to redirect an agent or implement a solution directly.

The position spans user interfaces, APIs, services, databases, cloud-hosted applications, and system integrations. The engineer translates loosely defined needs into clear technical designs and specifications, delivers maintainable software, and contributes to the team's technical quality and disciplined adoption of AI-first development. Experience with AI/ML-enabled applications, document processing, data platforms, and secure cloud environments is valuable.

The position is remote, based in Reston, Virginia, with periodic in-person work at a Pantheon Data office or client site as required by client needs. Local candidates should be prepared for an in-person interview; candidates outside the area may be considered for a virtual interview. Secret clearance is required for continued employment, and applicants selected are subject to a security investigation and eligibility requirements. The stated salary range is $145,000–$200,000, with actual compensation dependent on experience, location, and potentially contractual requirements. Pantheon Data offers competitive salaries and benefits, SmartBenefits through WMATA, and in some cases tuition assistance for related continuing education and certifications.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field from an accredited university.
• At least 7 years of hands-on software engineering experience with meaningful full stack responsibility.
• Strong computer science fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, design patterns, and system architecture.
• Experience establishing team practices for AI-first development, such as review standards, guardrails, specification templates, or methods for measuring agent effectiveness.
• Experience with spec-driven development, including writing specifications, acceptance criteria, and task breakdowns for agents and validating results against them.
• Ability to critically review AI-generated code for defects, security issues, unnecessary complexity, and deviations from requirements, and to redirect agents or correct code directly.
• Strong proficiency in at least one back-end language such as Python, Node.js/TypeScript, or a comparable modern application stack.
• Strong front-end development experience with React, Angular, Vue, or similar frameworks and ability to build usable, maintainable interfaces.
• Experience designing, building, and consuming RESTful APIs and service-oriented or microservice-based architectures.
• Practical database experience with SQL, NoSQL, graph, and vector systems, including schema design, query patterns, integration, and performance considerations.
• Experience with Git-based development workflows, including code review, branching, pull/merge requests, and release coordination, and managing and reviewing agent-authored branches and pull requests.
• Working knowledge of Docker and containerized development.
• Ability to debug complex issues across application, data, and deployment boundaries.
• Strong written and verbal communication, attention to detail, and ability to work effectively in a remote or hybrid cross-functional team.
• Secret clearance is required for continued employment; applicants are subject to a security investigation and may need to meet eligibility requirements.

Nice To Haves

• Recent experience delivering production software primarily through an agentic coding harness such as Claude Code or OpenAI Codex, beyond IDE autocomplete or chat-based assistance.
• Experience extending agentic coding harnesses through custom commands, skills, hooks, sub-agents, MCP server integrations, or headless coding agents in CI/CD workflows.
• Experience developing applications in secure government, DoD, FedRAMP, air-gapped, or compliance-driven environments, including applying AI development tools within security and data-handling constraints.
• Experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP application deployments, especially cloud-native applications.
• Experience integrating AI/ML systems, intelligent document processing, RAG workflows, search systems, graph databases, or data-rich applications.
• Experience with authentication and authorization patterns such as OIDC, SSO, RBAC, ABAC, mTLS, or API gateway/reverse-proxy integration.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Helm, Infrastructure as Code, SBOM generation, or observability tools such as ELK/OpenSearch, Splunk, Grafana, or Prometheus.
• Experience with AI/ML-enabled applications, document processing, data platforms, or secure cloud environments.

Responsibilities

• Use agentic coding harnesses such as Claude Code or OpenAI Codex as the primary development workflow, delegating implementation while retaining ownership of design, correctness, and quality.
• Decompose features into specifications, acceptance criteria, constraints, and task plans that agents can execute and reviewers can verify.
• Plan, launch, and supervise agent sessions, including parallel agents or sub-agents; monitor progress and intervene when work drifts, stalls, or becomes overcomplicated.
• Verify agent output through code review, automated tests, static analysis, and hands-on execution before merging.
• Maintain project context for coding agents, including repository instruction files, coding conventions, prompts, custom commands, skills, hooks, and MCP integrations.
• Decide when not to delegate and write or refactor code directly for subtle, security-sensitive, or more efficiently handled problems.
• Use only approved AI tools and environments, protecting sensitive, controlled, and customer-restricted information.
• Discuss how design decisions affect existing and planned architecture and functionality.
• Design, develop, and maintain front-end and back-end components for web applications and internal engineering tools.
• Build responsive, usable interfaces with modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks such as React, Angular, or Vue.
• Develop APIs, services, and integration layers using Python, Node.js, or comparable technologies.
• Translate product, customer, and engineering needs into technical designs and specifications that produce maintainable features.
• Build and integrate RESTful APIs, microservices, and data-backed application components.
• Work with relational and non-relational databases, search systems, object storage, and data services as required by the architecture.
• Support integrations with AI/ML workflows, document-processing pipelines, metadata services, graph/data systems, or retrieval-based applications where applicable.
• Understand application data flows and help ensure features are traceable, testable, and reliable.
• Develop cloud-hosted applications on AWS, Azure, GCP, or secure government cloud environments.
• Work within CI/CD pipelines and ensure changes build, pass automated tests, and clear required security scans before release.
• Build and run containerized applications using Docker.
• Follow secure coding practices and remediate vulnerabilities in code and dependencies.
• Write and maintain unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, using them as primary safeguards for agent-generated changes.
• Debug issues across UI, API, database, and deployment layers, including defects introduced by agent-generated code.
• Instrument features with meaningful logging, error handling, and telemetry, and document practical troubleshooting steps.
• Refactor and improve existing codebases to reduce technical debt and unnecessary complexity and make systems easier to extend.
• Collaborate with architects, data engineers, ML engineers, DevSecOps engineers, UI/UX contributors, and customer-facing team members.
• Communicate tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Mentor developers in core engineering practices and disciplined AI-first workflows; contribute to code reviews, design reviews, and engineering standards.
• Document APIs, specifications, workflows, configuration decisions, and operational procedures for future maintenance.

Benefits

• Competitive salaries and benefits.
• SmartBenefits through the Washington Metro Area Transportation Authority, with pre-tax wages paid directly to a SmarTrip account.
• Tuition assistance may be available for continuing education expenses and certifications related to the position.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior