Lead Developer

Guidehouse; Rockville (MD); On-site; USD 113,000 - 188,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

401(k) Retirement Plan

Paid Holidays

Job summary

Guidehouse is seeking a Lead Developer to provide technical leadership for Grants.gov operations, maintenance, enhancements, and integrations. You will coordinate with federal stakeholders, architects, and cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable, and user-centered solutions.

The role requires 8+ years in software development with leadership experience, secure development practices, and strong communication skills for complex environments.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in software development, including leadership of development teams or workstreams.
• Experience designing, developing, testing, deploying and maintaining enterprise applications in complex, mission-critical environments.
• Experience supporting operations, maintenance, release planning, deployment coordination and production support.

Responsibilities

• Lead application development, maintenance, and enhancements for Grants.gov, including web capabilities and interfaces.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership: architecture reviews, coding standards, reviews, troubleshooting, and secure development practices.
• Design, develop, test, and deploy approved enhancements per HHS EPLC and change management processes.
• Support maintenance to sustain availability, performance, usability, and uninterrupted service.
• Coordinate with architects, product owners, scrum masters, and security teams on deployments and performance tuning.
• Update technical documentation, release notes, and troubleshooting guides.

Skills

Technical leadership

Stakeholder coordination

Mentoring

Problem solving

Technical communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Git

Jira

Azure DevOps

Confluence

SharePoint

Microsoft Teams

CI/CD tools

Job description

What You Will Do

As a Lead Developer, you will provide technical leadership for teams supporting Grants.gov application operations, maintenance, enhancements, forms development, chatbot capabilities, system-to-system integrations, release planning, deployment, testing, documentation, and production support. You will work closely with federal stakeholders, architects, product owners, scrum masters, developers, testers, operations staff, security teams, IV&V partners, helpdesk partners, and modernization teams to design, build, troubleshoot, and deploy reliable, secure, scalable, and user-centered solutions. You will help ensure development activities align with HHS EPLC expectations, security and privacy requirements, application performance needs, and the operational continuity requirements of a public-facing federal shared service.

• Lead application development, maintenance, and enhancement activities for Grants.gov, including web-based capabilities, system-to-system interfaces, forms processing, chatbot-related updates, and operational support features.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership to developers by guiding solution design, coding standards, code reviews, troubleshooting, defect resolution, refactoring, and secure development practices.
• Design, develop, test, and deploy approved application enhancements in accordance with HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle expectations and program change management processes.
• Support corrective and preventative maintenance for the Grants.gov application and chatbot to sustain availability, performance, usability, and uninterrupted service through rolling deployment practices.
• Support S2S technical coordination, including certificate coordination, diagnostics, error log review, interface troubleshooting, and issue resolution for partner organizations.
• Coordinate with operations, database, cloud, security, and application platform teams on deployments, configuration changes, performance tuning, monitoring, incident response, and production support needs.
• Support testing activities, including unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, defect triage, IV&V coordination, release readiness, and validation of production changes.
• Update and maintain technical documentation, development artifacts, system documentation, release notes, online help updates, troubleshooting guides, and other materials needed to operate and maintain the system.
• Analyze production issues, helpdesk escalations, stuck submissions, broken links, performance concerns, and application defects; recommend and implement timely fixes and long-term improvements.
• Partner with architects and modernization teams to identify technical improvements, reduce technical debt, improve maintainability, support cost-efficiency goals, and align legacy Grants.gov capabilities with future-state modernization objectives.
• Communicate technical status, risks, design considerations, alternatives, and recommendations clearly to technical teams, federal stakeholders, and non-technical audiences.
• Develop and maintain Grants.gov forms and related processing capabilities, including validation, browser compatibility, Section 508 support, XML and PDF generation, and compatibility with current and prior form viewer versions.

Job Family

Software Development & Support

Travel Required

Up to 10%

Clearance Required

Ability to Obtain Public Trust

What You Will Need

• Bachelor's degree. Additional Four (4) years of exp needed in lieu of degree.
• 8+ years of experience in software development, application maintenance, systems integration, or technology modernization, including experience leading development teams or workstreams.
• Demonstrated experience designing, developing, testing, deploying, and maintaining enterprise applications in complex, mission-critical environments.
• Experience supporting application operations and maintenance, defect resolution, release planning, deployment coordination, performance tuning, and production support.
• Experience developing or supporting web applications, APIs, system-to-system integrations, data exchanges, forms processing, workflow capabilities, or user management functions.
• Working knowledge of secure software development, application lifecycle management, configuration management, quality assurance, DevSecOps practices, and change management processes.
• Ability to coordinate effectively with architects, product owners, scrum masters, developers, testers, operations teams, security teams, federal stakeholders, IV&V partners, helpdesk partners, and other contractors.
• Strong understanding of:
• Application design, coding standards, code reviews, refactoring, and maintainability
• Web application development, APIs, integrations, data exchange, and interface troubleshooting
• Unit, integration, regression, performance, accessibility, and security testing practices
• Release readiness, deployment planning, defect triage, incident response, and production support
• Technical documentation, system documentation, release notes, and operational knowledge transfer
• Experience using development and collaboration tools such as Git, Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, CI/CD tools, or similar platforms.
• Excellent technical communication, problem-solving, mentoring, and stakeholder coordination skills with the ability to explain complex technical issues to executive, federal, technical, and non-technical audiences.
• Must be able to OBTAIN and MAINTAIN a Federal or DoD "PUBLIC TRUST"; candidates must obtain approved adjudication of their PUBLIC TRUST prior to onboarding with Guidehouse. Candidates with an ACTIVE PUBLIC TRUST or SUITABILITY are preferred.

What Would Be Nice To Have

• Experience supporting federal grants management systems, shared service platforms, or large public-facing government applications.
• Experience with HHS, ACF, CMS, HRSA, NIH, or other federal grant-making agencies.
• Knowledge of HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC), federal IT governance, security documentation, ATO support, and compliance-driven development environments.
• Experience with FedRAMP, FISMA, NIST 800-53, POA&M management, incident response, security monitoring, vulnerability remediation, or other federal cybersecurity requirements from an application delivery perspective.
• Experience with Grants.gov-like capabilities, including funding opportunity posting, applicant registration, application submission, grantor user management, S2S integrations, form development, XML/PDF generation, SAM imports, or stuck submission troubleshooting.
• Experience supporting chatbot, AI-enabled customer support, website updates, broken link remediation, helpdesk escalation workflows, or public-facing user support capabilities.
• Experience supporting modernization, consolidation, transition-in, or multi-vendor integration initiatives involving multiple applications and stakeholder organizations.
• Relevant certifications such as: AWS Certified Developer, AWS Solutions Architect, or equivalent cloud certification; Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP) or equivalent secure development certification; SAFe Practitioner, SAFe DevOps, or Agile software delivery certification; ITIL, Security+, or other relevant federal IT, cybersecurity, or service management certification.

The annual salary range for this position is $113,000.00-$188,000.00. Compensation decisions depend on a wide range of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, security clearances, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs.

What We Offer

Guidehouse offers a comprehensive, total rewards package that includes competitive compensation and a flexible benefits package that reflects our commitment to creating a diverse and supportive workplace.

Benefits Include

• Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance
• Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays
• Parental Leave
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Group Term Life and Travel Assistance
• Voluntary Life and AD&D Insurance
• Health Savings Account, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Transit and Parking Commuter Benefits
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
• Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development, Certifications & Learning Opportunities
• Employee Referral Program
• Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach
• Care.com annual membership
• Employee Assistance Program
• Supplemental Benefits via Corestream (Critical Care, Hospital Indemnity, Accident Insurance, Legal Assistance and ID theft protection, etc.)
• Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus

About Guidehouse

Guidehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer–Protected Veterans, Individuals with Disabilities or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.

Guidehouse will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law or ordinance including the Fair Chance Ordinance of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If you have visited our website for information about employment opportunities, or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Guidehouse Recruiting at 1-571-633-1711 or via email at [e-mail]. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodation.

All communication regarding recruitment for a Guidehouse position will be sent from Guidehouse email domains including @guidehouse.com or [e-mail]. Correspondence received by an applicant from any other domain should be considered unauthorized and will not be honored by Guidehouse. Note that Guidehouse will never charge a fee or require a money transfer at any stage of the recruitment process and does not collect fees from educational institutions for participation in a recruitment event. Never provide your banking information to a third party purporting to need that information to proceed in the hiring process.

If any person or organization demands money related to a job opportunity with Guidehouse, please report the matter to Guidehouse’s Ethics Hotline. If you want to check the validity of correspondence you have received, please contact [e-mail]. Guidehouse is not responsible for losses incurred (monetary or otherwise) from an applicant’s dealings with unauthorized third parties.

Guidehouse does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Guidehouse and Guidehouse will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.