Development and Automation Lead

SkyePoint Decisions is seeking a Development and Automation Lead to join our team supporting the DoED FSA program. This position is contingent on contract win.

The Development & Automation Lead provides technical leadership for the design, development, integration, automation, testing, deployment, and sustainment of secure software and automation capabilities supporting Federal Student Aid (FSA). The role leads implementation of FSA-approved software development lifecycle (SDLC), DevSecOps, CI/CD, security, testing, configuration management, and release practices while driving automation across development, cybersecurity, data, workflow, and authorization activities.

The position works closely with Government stakeholders and multidisciplinary technical teams to translate business, cybersecurity, and technical requirements into secure, scalable, maintainable, and automated solutions.

This is a remote position.

Responsibilities:

Provide technical leadership for software development and automation activities supporting FSA systems and cybersecurity capabilities.
Lead the design, development, integration, testing, deployment, operation, and sustainment of secure software and automated solutions.
Achieve reporting and transparency metrics, to include compliance reporting, dashboard accuracy, and communication responsiveness.
Achieve customer and stakeholder experience metrics, including stakeholder satisfaction, governance participation, and speed of access request fulfillment.
Translate Government mission, functional, technical, and cybersecurity requirements into actionable development and automation priorities.
Lead implementation of secure SDLC and DevSecOps practices across development and automation efforts.
Establish and maintain development, secure-coding, automated-testing, configuration-management, documentation, and release standards.
Drive automation of repetitive development, security, compliance, testing, deployment, evidence-collection, and operational processes.
Lead CI/CD implementation and improvement, including automated builds, testing, security checks, quality gates, configuration management, and deployment.
Integrate unit, integration, end-to-end, security, compliance, and infrastructure testing into delivery workflows. FSA development/automation materials explicitly identify these testing activities as part of automated delivery workflows.
Coordinate software developers, DevSecOps/platform engineers, integration engineers, security automation engineers, data engineers, QA personnel, cybersecurity staff, architects, and Government stakeholders.
Guide integration of applications and automation solutions with APIs, data sources, cybersecurity tools, repositories, cloud platforms, and enterprise services.
Lead implementation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), configuration automation, pipeline-as-code, reusable automation components, and cloud deployment patterns where appropriate.
Incorporate cybersecurity findings and vulnerabilities into development priorities and automated remediation workflows.
Ensure application security capabilities such as SAST, DAST, Software Composition Analysis (SCA), dependency/secrets scanning, and other security testing are appropriately incorporated into development workflows.
Lead technical reviews of code, architecture decisions, automation logic, testing results, documentation, and releases.
Identify technical risks, integration dependencies, security concerns, performance issues, and delivery impediments and coordinate their resolution.
Maintain technical artifacts such as architecture decisions, runbooks, standard operating procedures, release documentation, automation libraries, and configuration documentation.
Support technical demonstrations, backlog refinement, release planning, defect resolution, and continuous improvement.
Mentor developers and engineers and provide technical direction on software engineering, automation, DevSecOps, and secure-development practices.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or a related technical discipline; equivalent relevant experience may substitute where permitted.
10+ years of relevant software development, engineering, DevSecOps, automation, or related technical experience.
Senior industry professional certification such as a CISSP or equivalent.
Demonstrated experience leading complex software development, automation, or engineering initiatives.
Experience designing, developing, integrating, testing, deploying, and maintaining enterprise software solutions.
Strong knowledge of secure SDLC and DevSecOps principles.
Demonstrated experience implementing CI/CD pipelines, source-code management, automated testing, configuration management, and deployment/release automation.
Experience using Git-based software-development practices and automated delivery workflows.
Experience implementing Infrastructure as Code and/or configuration automation.
Experience integrating automated security testing and vulnerability-management activities into software-development pipelines.
Experience with APIs, enterprise integrations, distributed applications, databases, and cloud-based solutions.
Proficiency with modern programming and/or scripting languages appropriate to enterprise automation.
Experience translating business and technical requirements into maintainable software and automation solutions.
Strong technical leadership, problem-solving, documentation, and communication skills.
Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to Government, engineering, cybersecurity, and business stakeholders.
Ability to obtain a 6c Public Trust. At least an active Secret clearance is required.
U.S. Citizenship required.