Technical Lead/Technical Architect - PPOD

PlanIT Group; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

PlanIT Group seeks a Technical Lead/Technical Architect to provide hands-on leadership for enterprise applications, aligning solutions with US Government client standards and policies. You will translate complex technical topics for executives, drive architectural direction, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure secure, scalable, and maintainable systems.

The role emphasizes AI-assisted development practices, governance, and measurable delivery improvements across architecture,

Qualifications

• Lead technical teams and set architectural direction for enterprise apps.
• Communicate complex topics clearly to executives and managers.
• Guide delivery with secure, scalable, maintainable systems.

Responsibilities

• Provide architectural direction and design guidance for one or more application teams.
• Translate technical risks and tradeoffs into actionable recommendations for leadership.
• Collaborate with managers, BSAs, and project leaders to shape scope and plans.
• Define and maintain solution designs, diagrams, and architecture decision records.
• Lead code reviews and enforce engineering standards for quality and security.
• Drive CI/CD practices, testing strategies, and release readiness.

Skills

Technical leadership

Enterprise architecture

Executive communication

Hands-on engineering

Security/compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/related field

Tools

Jira

AWS

Job description

Technical Lead/Technical Architect - PPOD

#29038113

Reston, VA, Contract On-Site, Flexibility/Remote: 100%

JOB SUMMARY

The Technical Lead / Technical Architect provides hands-on technical leadership and architectural direction for enterprise application solutions. This role guides development teams in designing and delivering secure, scalable, maintainable systems aligned with US Government Client technology direction, standards, and policies. The position serves as a key technical liaison to US Government Client Executives and Managers by translating complex technical topics into clear, actionable terms that support sound decision-making. The role works closely with US Government Client Managers, Business Systems Analysts (BSAs), Technical Project Leaders, CASI Architects, NIT leaders, and Environment Management Leads to ensure cohesive execution across architecture, delivery, and operational readiness. The position also promotes responsible use of AI-assisted development practices to streamline delivery, improve quality, and reduce total cost of ownership.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Provide technical leadership for one or more application teams, including architecture direction, design guidance, engineering standards, and delivery oversight.
• Translate complex technical concepts, tradeoffs, and risks into clear language for US Government Client Executives and Managers, including recommendations and decision points.
• Partner with US Government Client Managers, BSAs, and Technical Project Leaders to shape solution scope, define technical approaches, estimate effort, and align delivery plans.
• Collaborate with CASI Architects and NIT leaders to ensure solutions align with enterprise architecture, integration patterns, security controls, and platform standards.
• Define and maintain solution designs and technical documentation, including reference architectures, integration and data-flow diagrams, environment topology, and architecture decision records.
• Conduct and/or lead code reviews and technical design reviews to ensure code quality, maintainability, performance, security, and adherence to standards.
• Establish and enforce development best practices, including CI/CD expectations, branching strategies, testing strategy, and operational readiness requirements.
• Identify technical risks and systemic issues early, drive root-cause analysis, and implement corrective and preventative improvements.
• Provide direction and technical support to Environment Management Leads, ensuring environment provisioning, configuration, release readiness, and deployment coordination align with delivery needs.
• Ensure solutions meet US Government Client security and compliance expectations, including secure coding practices, auditability, vulnerability management, and appropriate data handling.
• Stay current on relevant technologies, industry trends, and US Government Client policies/standards; incorporate appropriate improvements into roadmaps and team practices.
• Drive responsible use of AI-assisted development to improve speed and quality and reduce rework, including use cases such as accelerating analysis and documentation, improving code and test generation, assisting with refactoring and code review, speeding defect triage, and improving operational troubleshooting through stronger knowledge capture and runbooks.
• Establish guardrails for secure and compliant AI usage, including protecting sensitive data, validating AI outputs, and aligning usage with US Government Client-approved tools and policies.
• Track and communicate measurable outcomes from modernization and AI enablement efforts (for example, cycle-time reduction, improved test coverage, defect reduction, and reduced operational toil).
• Mentor engineers and promote a culture of engineering excellence, continuous learning, and accountable delivery.

REQUIRED SKILLS

• Demonstrated experience as a Technical Lead, Technical Architect, or senior engineer leading design and delivery of enterprise applications.
• Strong ability to communicate with executive and management audiences, including simplifying technical topics, presenting tradeoffs, and recommending actionable paths forward.
• Proven ability to guide development teams through architecture decisions, implementation patterns, and quality expectations, while remaining hands-on when needed.
• Experience conducting effective code reviews and establishing engineering standards for readability, testability, security, and maintainability.
• Strong knowledge of modern architecture patterns (e.g., layered architectures, microservices/service-oriented approaches, event-driven patterns, API-first design).
• Strong understanding of security and compliance fundamentals in enterprise environments (identity and access, least privilege, encryption, audit logging, vulnerability management).
• Experience working cross-functionally with US Government Client Managers, BSAs, and Technical Project Leaders to align technical delivery to business outcomes.
• Familiarity with environment management and release readiness practices across development, test, staging, and production environments.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with enterprise architecture and governance stakeholders, including CASI Architects and NIT leadership.
• Strong documentation skills, including architecture diagrams, decision records, standards, and executive-ready summaries.
• Working knowledge of AI-assisted development concepts and the ability to establish practical, secure guardrails that improve productivity while maintaining quality and compliance.
• Continuous learning mindset with the ability to evaluate new technologies and apply them appropriately within US Government Client standards and constraints.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• 10+ years in technology delivery roles (e.g., Technical Delivery Lead, Technical Project Lead, Technical Program Coordinator/Lead, or similar).
• Proven ability to lead through influence and coordinate cross-functional work across engineering, architecture, infrastructure/environments, security, and operations.
• Strong requirements-to-delivery capability: translating complex needs into epics/features/stories and into executable plans with measurable outcomes.
• Practical understanding of AI/ML concepts and governance, with experience using approved AI-enabled tools/approaches to improve requirements, analysis, estimation, reporting, defect/incident triage, and overall delivery execution.
• Strong delivery discipline: planning, scope control, dependency management, risk/issue management, and proactive escalation.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams through change (without direct authority), adopt/improve delivery methodologies (Agile/DevSecOps), and drive measurable improvements using delivery/operational metrics.
• Technical fluency across SDLC and modern delivery practices (APIs/integrations, environments, DevSecOps concepts, logging/monitoring, and incident response); not required to code, but must engage effectively with technical teams.
• Strong executive communication: ability to present status, tradeoffs, and recommendations and drive timely decisions.
• Experience with work management and ITSM tools (e.g., VersionOne/Jira/Azure DevOps; ServiceNow or equivalent) and producing delivery artifacts (status, RAID logs, milestones, ROMs).

Preferred

• Scrum certification (e.g., CSM, PSM) and/or scaled Agile experience (e.g., SAFe).
• Experience supporting production releases and incident response in high-availability environments.
• Experience incorporating security, privacy, and performance requirements into delivery artifacts.
• Experience measuring and reducing costs (cloud consumption, tooling/supplier spend, operational effort) by identifying cost drivers, optimizing services, and automating repeatable work while maintaining service levels.

Additional Required Skills/Experience:

• Over Ten (10) years' of relevant experience.
• A degree from an accredited College/University in the applicable field of services is required. If the individual's degree is not in the applicable field then four additional years of related experience is required.
• Typically performs all functional duties independently.
• Note: Special credentials (licenses and/or certifications) may be required at the Task Order level on a case-specific basis.

Additional Provisions:

• Pass both a client mandated clearance process to include drug screening, criminal history check and credit check.
• Once candidate's resume is approved and interview passed, the agency is responsible for providing drug screening. Failure to submit the drug screening results will delay the security clearance process.
• If a candidate is given an interim clearance, continuation of employment is then based on the candidate receiving a sensitive clearance.
• All candidates must be a US Citizen, or have permanent residence status (Green Card).
• Candidate must have lived in the US for the past 5 years.
• Cannot have more than 6 months travel outside the United States within the last five years. Military Service excluded. (Exception does not include military family members).
• All overtime must be pre-approved in writing by the client manager or his/her designated representative.
• Agency will not be reimbursed for overtime charges without previous written authorization. Authorized overtime will be reimbursed at straight time.
• The enforced dress code is business casual, i.e. collared shirt with slacks for men, no skirts above the knee for women.

Place and Period of Performance

Hours of support:

• The standard work week for contract staff will be 5 days a week and 8 hours per day preferable Monday through Friday.
• Contract staff may be required to travel to support business efforts.