This is a U.S. based position. All of the programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S.

Who we are:

Raft (https://TeamRaft.com) is a customer-obsessed non-traditional small business with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development, with headquarters in Reston, VA. Our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.

We’re looking for an experienced Chief Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.

About the role:

As a Chief Engineer, you’ll use your experience to guide more than one software team on a path to production at a massive scale. With your profound knowledge, you anticipate challenges, spotting pitfalls long before they become obstacles. Our teams will rely on your foresight, expecting you to provide durable plans and robust mitigation strategies. This role is not just about guidance; it’s also about execution. You will be deeply involved in writing plugins, applications, webhooks, and modules that cater to the unique needs of multiple teams in our vast enterprise environment.

What we are looking for: 

• 16+ years of building applications at scale in various languages with a JVM based language being at least one of them
• Experience with design patterns and architectural decisions records (ADRs)
• Ability to design abstract modules, interfaces, classes, concepts that can be leveraged and customized by multiple software teams
• Experience in building event streaming applications using Kafka, Pulsar, or Red Panda
• Experience in recommending tooling choices to multiple teams based on their requirements
• Ability to explain highly complex technical details in plain language
• Deep understanding of CI/CD pipelines using various tools like GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins, etc.
• Experienced in building applications that follow 12 factor app principals and/or the reactive manifesto
• Experienced in deploying applications to Cloud Foundry and/or Kubernetes
• Obtain Security+ within the first 90 days of employment with Raft

 Highly preferred:

• Track record of speaking at public facing conferences about software engineering principals
• Having a knowledge radar of modern software trends and knowing their pros and cons
• More than one war story of running into issues while building large scale software applications

Clearance Requirements:

• Ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance

Work Type: 

• Remote
• May require up to 10% travel

What we will offer you:

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) and company match
• Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Education & training benefits
• Annual budget for your tech/gadgets needs
• Monthly box of yummy snacks to eat while doing meaningful work
• Remote, hybrid, and flexible work options
• Team off-site in fun places!
• Generous Referral Bonuses
• And More!

Our Vision Statement: 

We bridge the gap between humans and data through radical transparency and our obsession with the mission. 

Our Customer Obsession: 

We will approach every deliverable like it's a product. We will adopt a customer-obsessed mentality. As we grow, and our footprint becomes larger, teams and employees will treat each other not only as teammates but customers. We must live the customer-obsessed mindset, always. This will help us scale and it will translate to the interactions that our Rafters have with their clients and other product teams that they integrate with. Our culture will enable our success and set us apart from other companies.

How do we get there? 

Public-sector modernization is critical for us to live in a better world. We, at Raft, want to innovate and solve complex problems. And, if we are successful, our generation and the ones that follow us will live in a delightful, efficient, and accessible world where out-of-box thinking, and collaboration is a norm. 

Raft’s core philosophy is Ubuntu: I Am, Because We are. We support our “nadi” by elevating the other Rafters. We work as a hyper collaborative team where each team member brings a unique perspective, adding value that did not exist before. People make Raft special. We celebrate each other and our cognitive and cultural diversity. We are devoted to our practice of innovation and collaboration. 

We’re an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.