Senior/Staff Software Engineer (U.S. Air Force)

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. In this role, software engineers will design, implement, and maintain software systems to improve government services, partnering with the U.S. Air Force to build secure, scalable mobile systems that support specialized operations.

Responsibilities:

• Engineer mobile software products (iOS, Android, and/or cross-platform) as part of a cross-functional team that includes user experience researchers and designers, product managers, engineers, and other functional specialists
• Design, build, and maintain CI/CD pipelines that automate build, test, code signing, and release of mobile applications across multiple environments (e.g., Fastlane, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Bitrise, App Center)
• Provision and operate cloud infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation), with a preference for AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, or other DoD-authorized environments
• Implement observability across mobile clients and backend services — logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting — so the team can detect, diagnose, and resolve issues quickly
• Apply DevSecOps practices including secrets management, dependency scanning, SAST/DAST, secure software supply chain, and continuous compliance against DoD security baselines
• Achieve technical excellence by advocating for and adhering to lean-agile engineering principles and practices such as API-first design, simple design, continuous integration, version control, trunk-based development, and automated testing
• Select and use the right tools, frameworks, languages, and technologies for the job, with a preference for open-source solutions
• Analyze systems to identify technical debt, instability, unreliability, and other opportunities for improvement, then design, document, and communicate solutions
• Coordinate with government partners to ensure seamless integration with their existing tools, deployment processes, and authorization environments (ATO, cATO)

Requirements:

• Ability to write clean, working, and reusable code
• Mobile application development experience in a system-of-systems context (e.g., iOS/Android native, Swift, Kotlin, or React Native)
• Hands-on experience designing and operating CI/CD pipelines for mobile applications, including build automation, code signing, provisioning profiles, and app distribution
• Working knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and infrastructure-as-code tooling (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation)
• Experience with containerization and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and modern deployment patterns
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, New Relic, CloudWatch, Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry)
• Can produce high-quality code by adhering to good practices such as automated testing
• Familiar with how to build secure, compliant software, defend against common vulnerabilities, and apply DevSecOps principles in regulated environments
• Foundational understanding of data engineering, including how to use various datastores to handle persistent data in software systems
• Understand the different pieces of software systems and how to fit them together, while keeping performance, reliability, and availability in mind
• Understand the importance of always putting users at the center of your work, including thinking through the impact and implications of any code that you write
• Experience delivering products in defense or similarly regulated environments
• Passionate about creating better public outcomes through great government services
• A mindset and work approach that align with Skylight's core values
• Ability to travel for work from time to time
• Familiarity with software engineering best practices and site reliability engineering (SRE)
• Experience with DoD platforms and accreditation frameworks (e.g., Platform One, Iron Bank, Big Bang, FedRAMP, IL2–IL5, ATO/cATO processes)
• Experience with mobile device management (MDM) and enterprise mobile deployment in restricted environments
• Consulting experience, and mentoring/coaching personnel
• Edge computing and experience with AI/ML is helpful
• Experience with multiple programming languages and/or full-stack development
• Familiarity with secrets management and policy-as-code tooling (e.g., HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, OPA)
• Prior experience working in the civic tech space
• Experience working in a remote-team environment