Senior Technical Lead

Ignite IT, LLC; Suitland, Northern (MD, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

401(k) matching

Dental insurance

Flexible spending account

Health insurance

Life insurance

Paid time off

Professional development assistance

Referral program

Tuition reimbursement

Vision insurance

Job summary

Ignite IT, LLC seeks a senior Technical Lead to guide a multidisciplinary team supporting the U.S. Census Bureau's LLMAutocoder, converting survey write-ins into standardized codes.

You will report to the Contract Project Manager and lead hands-on technical delivery, sustain ACS operations, and coordinate enhancements to other surveys. Responsibilities include translating government priorities into clear tasks, guiding architecture across data science, AI/ML, and MLOps, and ensuring security,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, data science, or a related field, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• 10+ years in software, data, or AI/ML delivery, including 3+ years leading technical teams and hands-on experience supporting production ML or NLP systems.
• Strong Python skills and experience with AWS, data pipelines, interfaces, Git, automated testing, and controlled software releases.
• Practical experience with LLM applications, text classification, model evaluation, and translating experiments into maintainable production capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to manage technical dependencies, resolve complex issues, and communicate with both specialists and nontechnical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Translate Government priorities into clear technical tasks, acceptance criteria, estimates, dependencies, and delivery plans with the Project Manager.
• Guide architecture, method selection, and integration across data science, AI/ML engineering, MLOps, and evaluation; contribute to code reviews and troubleshooting.
• Coordinate production issue resolution, assess mission impact, remove blockers, and turn recurring problems into planned improvements.
• Lead design and peer reviews; verify test evidence, security and privacy controls, documentation, and rollback readiness before government approval of production changes.
• Coordinate pilots and model improvements using baseline comparisons and agreed performance thresholds; review with Government SMEs.
• Explain technical findings, tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations clearly to Government technical staff and leadership; elevate delivery and capacity concerns promptly.
• Maintain technical decisions and task status, mentor team members, and coordinate documentation, cross-training, and knowledge transfer.

Skills

Python

Leadership

Communication

NLP

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

AWS

Git

CI/CD

Job description

Ignite IT Hub isseeking a senior Technical Lead to guide a multidisciplinary team supporting the U.S. Census Bureau's LLMAutocoder. The system converts survey write-in responses into standardized codes. Reporting to the Contract Project Manager, you will lead hands-on technical delivery, sustain American Community Survey (ACS) operations, and coordinate enhancements and expansion to other surveys and demographic projects.

Responsibilities

• Translate Government priorities into clear technical tasks, acceptance criteria, estimates, dependencies, and delivery plans with the Project Manager.

• Guide architecture, methodselection, and integration across data science, AI/ML engineering,MLOps, and evaluation while contributing to code reviews and troubleshooting.

• Coordinate production issue resolution, assess mission impact, remove technical blockers, and turn recurring problems into planned improvements.

• Lead design and peer reviews. Verify test evidence, security and privacy controls, documentation, and rollback readiness before recommending Government approval of production changes.

• Coordinate pilots and model improvements using baseline comparisons, agreed performance thresholds, and review with Government subject matter experts.

• Explain technical findings, tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations clearly to Government technical staff and leadership; elevate delivery and capacity concerns promptly.

• Maintain technical decisions and task status, mentor team members, and coordinate documentation, cross-training, and knowledge transfer.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, data science, or a related field, or equivalent relevant professional experience.

• 10+ years in software, data, or AI/ML delivery, including 3+ years leading technical teams and hands-on experience supportingproductionML or NLP systems.

• Strong Python skills and experience with AWS, data pipelines, interfaces, Git, automated testing, and controlled software releases.

• Practical experience with LLM applications, text classification, model evaluation, and translating experiments into maintainable production capabilities.

• Demonstrated ability to manage technical dependencies, resolve complex issues, and communicate with both specialists and nontechnical stakeholders.

Preferred qualifications

• Census, federal statistical, survey-processing, or othersensitive-dataprogram experience.

• Experience with coding taxonomies, hybrid LLM and matching approaches, and delivery within Government security and change-control processes.

Conditions of employment.Position contingent on contract award. Must be able to obtain andmaintainapplicable Census Special Sworn Status and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) credentials, follow confidentiality requirements, and support Census core business hours andcoordinatedcritical processing runs.

Benefits

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Professional development assistance
• Referral program
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance