Principal Full Stack Engineer

Why Bixal?

Bixal is a consulting company headquartered in Fairfax, VA, working alongside governments and organizations to help them deliver better services and experiences to the communities they serve. Using evidence-based knowledge and technology, Bixal empowers clients to deliver on their missions more effectively by fostering a culture of learning and continuous improvement.

Our values:

• People-First: Emphasizing the importance of people in all aspects of work.

• Collaboration and Transparency: Valuing teamwork and open communication.

• Growth Mindset: Encouraging innovation and continuous improvement.

• Creating Lasting Impact: Focusing on meaningful outcomes and positive change.

About the role:

Bixal is seeking a Principal Full Stack Engineer to lead technical delivery on a federal platform that supports governmentwide regulatory planning and review. Federal agencies, oversight offices, and the public rely on these systems, which must stay available 24/7/365 while a modern replacement is built alongside them.

This role spans both sides of that work. You will keep the existing Java, Spring, and Oracle applications stable, performant, and secure, leading defect resolution and delivering approved enhancements. You will also design and build the replacement platform on cloud, container, and DevOps foundations, shaping its target architecture, its integrations with related federal systems, and the path for moving users and data off the legacy stack. Priorities shift between the two, so we're looking for a hands-on technical leader who is equally comfortable sustaining a production system and building a new one.

You will set technical direction, mentor engineers, and partner with our Project Manager, designers, and security lead. You will also work directly with the client's technical leads and product owner, translating complex trade-offs into clear recommendations.

This is a full-time position on an awarded contract with a 12-month base period and two 12-month option periods. This role offers you a unique opportunity to make a meaningful impact on a project that aligns with Bixal’s mission of delivering innovative, human-centered solutions. While the role has a fixed duration, we are committed to transparency and collaboration, keeping you informed about contract updates and new opportunities. At Bixal, we support your professional journey, ensuring your experience reflects our inclusive, purpose-driven culture and prepares you for future success.

Location

This role can work remotely from anywhere in the USA. You must be legally authorized to work in the US.  Bixal does not provide visa sponsorship. 

Compensation:

The salary range for this role is $145,000 – $155,000. In the spirit of transparency, most offers tend to land near the midpoint of the range. We make compensation decisions thoughtfully, considering your experience, the skills you bring, and our commitment to internal equity. Fairness and transparency are core to how we operate.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as technical lead for the program, setting engineering standards, reviewing code and architecture, and guiding technical decisions across existing and new systems.

• Lead the Target Solution Architecture and Analysis of Alternatives for the replacement platform, weighing integration, containerized deployment, DevOps efficiency, case and workflow management, and security.

• Design, prototype, build, and deploy applications on cloud, container, and DevOps foundations, while maintaining and tuning existing Java, Spring, Tomcat, and Oracle applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

• Design reusable platform capabilities such as 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, such as 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 pay down technical debt, including outdated code and unsupported libraries.

• Own CI/CD pipelines that build with a single command, deploy automatically from version control, deploy without downtime, and roll back immediately when needed.

• Hold the team to the contract's quality bar: at least 90% test coverage, zero linting errors, zero accessibility errors, and no unresolved medium or high security findings.

• Build in Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility and secure coding practices 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, helping the team grow its skills and consistency.

• Work in an agile process with sprint cycles, contributing to planning, estimation, and roadmaps.

• Brief client technical leads and the product owner on technical options, risks, and recommendations.

• Other relevant duties as assigned and qualified/trained to perform.

Qualifications:

• 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 (Oracle preferred), 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, WCAG 2.1 AA), and Linux server environments.

• Experience working in Agile/Scrum delivery environments.

• Polished communication skills, with experience presenting technical options and trade-offs to clients and non-technical stakeholders.

• This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a favorable Public Trust determination in support of a federal government contract.

Nice to Have Skills and Experience:

• 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.

How We Support Our Team:

• Flex hours

• 401K with matching incentive

• Parental Leave

• Medical/dental/vision benefits

• Flex Spending Account

• Company provided short-term disability and life insurance

• Commuter benefits

• Paid Time Off (PTO)

• 11 Paid holidays

Our company is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all individuals and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs.