Senior/Staff/Principal Software Engineer, Legacy Modernization (U.S. Air Force)

Skylight; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Disability insurance

Life and AD&D insurance

401(k) match 10%

PTO ~25 days + 11 holidays

Professional development allowances

Job summary

Skylight is seeking a Senior/Staff/Principal Software Engineer to modernize legacy Air Force systems. You will refactor and migrate aging applications to a DoD software factory, while guiding government partners through technical tradeoffs and ensuring uptime.

You will work in a fully remote setup, collaborating with government engineers and contractors. The role emphasizes secure, scalable web tech, test automation, and a strong user focus, with a clear pathway across seniority levels.

Qualifications

• Ability to write clean, working, and reusable code.
• Can produce high-quality code by adhering to good practices such as automated testing.
• Familiar with building secure, compliant software and defending against vulnerabilities.
• Foundational understanding of data engineering and datastores for persistent data.
• Understand systems and how to fit components with performance and reliability in mind.
• Always put users at the center, considering impact of code.
• Experience shipping production software in a modern web stack, including legacy migrations.
• Experience in government or regulated environments with security authorization (ATO).
• Experience working on cross-functional teams in iterative delivery.
• Proven ability to stay aligned on remote teams.

Responsibilities

• Refactor and migrate legacy web applications onto a DoD software factory with minimal downtime.
• Collaborate in a cross-functional team of researchers, designers, product managers, and engineers.
• Promote lean-agile practices: simple design, CI, version control, automated testing.
• Analyze systems to identify debt and instability, design and document solutions.
• Explain technical tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders for multi-vendor decisions.
• Pair with government engineers to ensure modern practices stick after project ends.

Skills

Clean code

Automated testing

Secure software

Data engineering

System integration

User-centric design

Legacy modernization

Cross-functional teamwork

Remote collaboration

Public sector experience

Job description

Senior/Staff/Principal Software Engineer, Legacy Modernization (U.S. Air Force)

United States

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services.

We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today’s digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists.

The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, software engineers design, implement, and maintain software systems to improve government services for users. This software is built to meet the needs of regular users of government services as well as Skylight’s partners in government. Legacy modernization engineers specialize in migrating, refactoring, or replacing legacy government systems with little to no downtime.

Skylight is partnering with a U.S. Air Force program office that runs a portfolio of civil engineering systems. These systems serve users across civil engineering, security forces, and services, including readiness managers, range personnel, and fire and emergency services. Releases are slow today. Regression testing is manual, security review happens after development finishes, and code freeze to production can take a month or more. We’ll move the program to an outcome-driven model with test automation and security built into the pipeline, starting with migrating the first application onto a DoD software factory. Leadership wants this office to become the model other Air Force offices adopt.

In this role, you’ll refactor and migrate aging Air Force web applications while keeping them running for the people who depend on them, and you’ll explain the technical tradeoffs clearly enough that government stakeholders can make good decisions.

What to know going in

Your first 30 days are about working with the Skylight team and government personnel, learning how the program office gets changes to users today, and understanding where testing and security slow things down. This is new work that replaces a traditional support model, so part of the job is coaching your government partners to keep these practices running after we leave. Expect to work alongside government engineers and other contractors, with tools and processes changing as the work gets underway.

This role is contingent on Skylight being awarded the underlying contract. If we’re not awarded the contract, we’ll let you know promptly and discuss whether there are other opportunities that fit.

What you’ll do

• Refactor and migrate legacy web applications onto a DoD software factory, with little to no downtime for users
• Engineer software as part of a cross-functional team of researchers, designers, product managers, and other engineers
• Achieve technical excellence by advocating for and adhering to lean-agile engineering practices such as simple design, continuous integration, version control, and automated testing
• Analyze systems to identify technical debt, instability, and other opportunities for improvement, and design, document, and communicate solutions
• Explain technical tradeoffs clearly to non-technical stakeholders and help them make decisions in a complex, multi-vendor environment
• Pair with and coach government engineers and incoming military developers so modern practices stick after we leave

What we’re looking for

• Ability to write clean, working, and reusable code
• Can produce high-quality code by adhering to good practices such as automated testing
• Familiar with how to build secure, compliant software and defend against common vulnerabilities
• Possess a 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 shipping production software in a modern web stack, including refactoring or migrating legacy web applications
• Experience working in a government or regulated environment with formal security authorization (ATO)
• Experience working on cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering, ops) in iterative delivery
• A track record of staying aligned and accountable on remote teams
• A mindset and work approach that aligns with our core values

Nice-to-haves

• Angular experience
• Experience migrating applications to the cloud or a DoD software factory (Cloud One, MDaaS, Platform One, or similar)
• Experience testing COTS-based systems such as Esri or IBM TRIRIGA
• Experience writing automated tests and working in CI/CD, ideally GitLab CI
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools, paired with disciplined code review
• Experience delivering technology in government, regulated industries, or other public-benefit settings

Other requirements

• Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.
• All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories.
• This contract requires U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment.
• You must be able to obtain a Common Access Card (CAC) and any special access required for this contract.
• You must complete a company background check successfully.

Logistics

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a fully remote position.

Travel

This role includes occasional travel to Montgomery, AL, and other U.S. Air Force bases.

We’re targeting a start date of November 30, 2026, pending contract award.

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Software Engineer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

• Associate Software Engineer: $90,000–$125,000
• Software Engineer I: $120,000–$140,000
• Software Engineer II: $135,000–$160,000
• Senior Software Engineer: $150,000–$185,000
• Staff Software Engineer: $170,000–$203,000
• Principal Software Engineer: $180,000–$230,000

Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways:

• Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
• Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
• Flexible paid-time-off policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
• Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents
• Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
• Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development
• Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
• Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
• Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
• An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good

Interview tips

Our process includes a preliminary screen, a skills interview, a behavioral interview, and a reverse interview where you meet your potential team — usually four conversations across two to three weeks. Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview:

• Visit our join page to learn more about how our interview process works.
• Check out our Career Pathways framework to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them.

If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at [e-mail] .

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.

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For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Skylight’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

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A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

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An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.