Chief Engineer

POSITION DESCRIPTION:
Pioneering Evolution is seeking a Chief Engineer to own technical architecture, engineering quality, and design integrity for our modular enterprise application platform. This is a senior technical leadership role for someone who wants to own architecture and engineering standards end-to-end while staying hands-on in the codebase.

The Chief Engineer directly manages the DevSecOps Engineer and QA Engineer, and works closely with the Technical Lead and development team to ensure all work meets architectural and quality standards before it moves into active development. The role combines architecture ownership, quality-gate authority, and regular hands-on coding and troubleshooting - this is not a purely advisory position. All candidates must be a U.S. citizen and able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Provide senior architectural guidance for the modular enterprise application platform and related solution components.
• Define and enforce architecture principles, design patterns, and engineering standards that support scalability, maintainability, security, and reuse.
• Own infrastructure, tech-stack, and environment decisions, including migration strategy and execution oversight.
• Define non-functional requirements (performance, security, scalability, compliance) and the related test strategy.
• Evaluate current-state architecture and technical risk, and recommend improvements aligned with platform goals.
• Review and sign off on technical readiness of work items before they move into active development, and require rework where design or architecture standards are not met.
• Own engineering quality gates, including architectural code-review standards and release-readiness from a technical standpoint.
• Direct the work of the DevSecOps and QA Engineers, including CI/CD pipeline design, merge-gate standards, and non-functional/performance test execution.
• Act as the team's chief troubleshooter, diving into sprint problems to determine root cause and unblock delivery.
• Contribute regularly to the codebase, including pairing, prototyping, and writing production code in high-risk or high-leverage areas.
• Conduct code-level reviews focused on architecture and non-functional compliance, and mentor engineers on sound architectural practices.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years in an architect or technical-authority role on enterprise applications.
• Proven experience designing, evaluating, and evolving complex modular or multi-component software systems, including ownership of non-functional requirements.
• Demonstrated experience acting as a technical gatekeeper or quality authority, such as architecture review or technical sign-off before work enters a delivery pipeline.
• Direct experience owning infrastructure, environment topology, and tech-stack decisions, including migration strategy.
• Experience managing or directing DevSecOps and/or QA engineering functions.
• Strong command of engineering best practices, performance considerations, and secure application design.
• Strong proficiency in modern .NET / .NET Core for backend and API architecture.
• Strong proficiency in Angular for enterprise front-end architecture and design patterns.
• Demonstrated ability to assess existing systems, identify technical risk, and recommend practical improvement paths.
• Willingness and ability to work hands-on in the codebase regularly to validate designs and resolve complex technical issues.

DESIRED EXPERIENCE:

• Experience designing systems for RMF / ATO readiness in DoD or other regulated environments.
• Familiarity with DoD cyber workforce qualification frameworks, including DoD 8140 and legacy 8570.
• Familiarity with CMMC Level 2 / NIST 800-171 control requirements as applied to engineering and infrastructure environments.
• Experience partnering with security, DevSecOps, and compliance stakeholders to support authorization and production readiness.
• Familiarity with Azure deployment environments, including AKS (Azure GCC High experience a plus).
• Experience supporting application modernization, platform consolidation, or migration from legacy solutions.
• Familiarity with integrating ML/AI components into enterprise .NET applications.
• Demonstrated success mentoring engineers and improving technical maturity across an engineering organization.

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE OFFER:
In addition to competitive salaries and opportunities for professional development and advancement, our employees enjoy a comprehensive range of benefits. To keep pace with the changing needs of our employees, we continually evaluate benefit plans, including:

• Paid time off
• 10 paid holidays
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Legal assistance
• Company-paid life insurance and AD&D
• Company-paid long-term and short-term disability insurance
• Tuition reimbursement
• 401(k) plan with company contribution
• Continuing education opportunities