Technical Lead

Wilcore Technologies, Inc.; Stafford (VA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Wilcore Technologies, Inc. is seeking a Program Tech Lead to provide overarching technical direction for a large-scale, multi-disciplinary program. This leadership role emphasizes strategy, collaboration across contracting teams, and AI-enabled software delivery.

You will act as a technical compass for a matrixed organization spanning front end, back end, data, and AI systems, guiding discipline leads and driving secure, scalable architecture in a modern ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Deep understanding of agentic coding tools and context engineering.
• Proven experience designing and overseeing large-scale AWS-based systems.
• Broad lifecycle knowledge with deep expertise in 1–2 core areas.

Responsibilities

• Provide overarching technical direction for a large, multi-disciplinary program.
• Coach developers on modern toolchains and context engineering for faster delivery.
• Balance strategic architecture with delivering incremental value and lean MVPs.
• Negotiate scope and LOE with government stakeholders and product teams.
• Guide cross-disciplinary teams including frontend, backend, data, and AI.

Skills

AI Native Mindset

AWS & Architecture

T-Shaped Leadership

Systems Thinking

Stakeholder Management

Pragmatism & Agility

Education

4 Year Degree

Job description

About the Role

We are seeking a strategic, highly collaborative Program Tech Lead to provide overarching technical direction for a large-scale, multi-disciplinary program. In this role, you will be the technical compass for a matrixed engineering organization spread across multiple contracting teams, product-focused scrum teams, and discipline-specific shared services.

Description

We are seeking a strategic, highly collaborative Program Tech Lead to provide overarching technical direction for a large-scale, multi-disciplinary program. In this role, you will be the technical compass for a matrixed engineering organization spread across multiple contracting teams, product-focused scrum teams, and discipline-specific shared services.

This is primarily a strategic, directional, and highly collaborative leadership role rather than a hands-on coding position. We are looking for a strong "T-shaped" engineering leader. You are not expected to be the Subject Matter Expert in every single technology we use; rather, you possess deep, authoritative expertise in one or two core areas (like AWS architecture and modern software development) and a broad enough understanding of everything else to converse intelligently, guide decisions, and empower our dedicated discipline leads. (And if you ever want to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty in your area of depth, we certainly won't stop you!)

As an AI-native leader, you will also play a critical role as a coach and advocate, guiding our developers through a fast-moving, transformative era of software development and ensuring we get the maximum value out of modern agentic coding tools. You will serve as the crucial bridge between government stakeholders, product/delivery teams, and our engineering squads, ensuring that our front end, back end, data, and AI systems seamlessly integrate into a highly scalable, secure, and modern ecosystem.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Champion AI-Native Engineering: Act as a coach and advocate for our developers using agentic coding tools (such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, Gemini, and Codex). Even when you aren't writing the code yourself, you will guide the team on advanced context engineering and best practices to accelerate delivery.
• Drive Strategic Architecture & Delivery: Balance a long-range, big-picture mindset with the need to deliver immediate value. You will architect solutions that ensure we don't box ourselves in for the future, while partnering with stakeholders to define lean MVPs and execute iterative, fast follows.
• Negotiate Scope & Trade-offs: Take a primary role in working with government stakeholders and the product/delivery team to understand complex requirements, estimate Level of Effort (LOE), negotiate scope, and make reasonable trade-offs to deliver quality software on time.
• Navigate Ambiguity: Successfully operate in an environment with uncertain scope or changing requirements, applying agile principles to keep the engineering teams aligned and moving forward.
• Empower Multi-Disciplinary Teams: Provide overarching technical guidance across a wide range of disciplines, relying on and collaborating tightly with our dedicated discipline leads in:
• Front end and back end application development
• Cloud infrastructure and DevOps
• AI/ML models and infrastructure
• Data pipelines, data warehousing, analytics, and BI dashboards
• Foster Cross-Ecosystem Collaboration: Act as the technical linchpin, collaborating not just internally, but externally with contractors on other programs who serve as our downstream consumers, upstream dependencies, or peers.

What You’ll Bring

• An "AI Native" Mindset: Deep understanding of modern agentic coding tools and how to maximize their value. You understand the importance of context engineering and know how to coach a team through this rapidly evolving technological landscape.
• Deep AWS & Architecture Expertise: Proven experience designing, deploying, and overseeing complex, highly scalable enterprise systems on AWS.
• A "T-Shaped" Leadership Profile: Broad knowledge across the full software development lifecycle combined with deep technical expertise in at least one or two core areas. You know enough to ask the right questions, but are comfortable delegating depth to your discipline leads.
• Systems Thinking: A strong ability to step back from individual teams to see the big picture, understanding how disparate systems integrate and scale together.
• Exceptional Stakeholder Management: You excel at translating complex technical realities into clear business value, managing expectations and driving consensus among varied vendor teams and government clients.
• Pragmatism and Agility: A solution-oriented mindset that prioritizes solving the actual problem, delivering value early, and adapting quickly to new information.

Bonus If You Have

• Experience navigating federal security and compliance standards, including FedRAMP, FISMA, or guiding systems through the ATO (Authority to Operate) process.
• Familiarity with our specific modern data stack, which heavily leverages AWS (S3, RedShift, Aurora, EKS, SQS, SNS, QuickSight), OpenMetadata, Argo Workflows, dbt, and Python.
• Familiarity with modern AI/ML infrastructure, specifically integrating managed services like AWS Bedrock or similar generative AI tools.

Requirements

• 4 Year Degree & 10+ years of experience
• Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. In alignment with federal contract requirements, certain roles may also require U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a federal background investigation and/or a security clearance.

What you’ll be doing

• Champion AI-Native Engineering: Act as a coach and advocate for our developers using agentic coding tools (such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, Gemini, and Codex). Even when you aren't writing the code yourself, you will guide the team on advanced context engineering and best practices to accelerate delivery.
• Drive Strategic Architecture & Delivery: Balance a long-range, big-picture mindset with the need to deliver immediate value. You will architect solutions that ensure we don't box ourselves in for the future, while partnering with stakeholders to define lean MVPs and execute iterative, fast follows.
• Negotiate Scope & Trade-offs: Take a primary role in working with government stakeholders and the product/delivery team to understand complex requirements, estimate Level of Effort (LOE), negotiate scope, and make reasonable trade-offs to deliver quality software on time.
• Navigate Ambiguity: Successfully operate in an environment with uncertain scope or changing requirements, applying agile principles to keep the engineering teams aligned and moving forward.
• Empower Multi-Disciplinary Teams: Provide overarching technical guidance across a wide range of disciplines, relying on and collaborating tightly with our dedicated discipline leads in:
• Front end and back end application development
• Cloud infrastructure and DevOps
• AI/ML models and infrastructure
• Data pipelines, data warehousing, analytics, and BI dashboards
• Foster Cross-Ecosystem Collaboration: Act as the technical linchpin, collaborating not just internally, but externally with contractors on other programs who serve as our downstream consumers, upstream dependencies, or peers.