Lead Software Engineer (Application Developer III) - 60027645

Posting number: 191976

Department: Department of Education

Job classification: Application Developer III

Posting type: Open

Categories: IT and Computers, Education

Summary

Job Responsibilities

The mission of the South Carolina Department of Education is to serve students, support teachers, empower parents, and engage the community so that every student graduates prepared to reach their full potential.

Purpose of Position

The South Carolina Department of Education is seeking an accomplished Lead Software Engineer to serve as the senior hands-on technical contributor for a software development team within the Office of Information Technology. This role is crucial in delivering and modernizing the applications that support the Agency's mission, setting the technical standard through direct development work while providing technical direction and mentorship to a team of developers. The ideal candidate will have deep, current experience in full-stack software development, application architecture, cloud delivery on Microsoft Azure, and the modernization of legacy systems onto modern frameworks.

This position reports to the Director of Enterprise Application & Architecture.

Essential Functions

Software Design and Development (50%)

• Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain production applications across the team's technology stack — full-stack modern web development using React and React Native on the frontend, Python on the backend, Azure SQL for data, and Microsoft Azure for hosting.
• Own delivery of complex features and services end to end, from requirements and design through implementation, testing, deployment, and production support.
• Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code and contribute to shared libraries, components, and patterns used across the team.
• Diagnose and resolve production issues, including performance, reliability, and security defects.

Technical Design and Architecture (20%)

• Lead technical design for new applications and significant enhancements; produce architecture, design, and integration documentation.
• Make and document framework, pattern, and tooling decisions in coordination with the Director and the Infrastructure & Cloud Operations group.
• Evaluate and prototype new technologies — including cloud-native Azure services, infrastructure-as-code (Bicep), and emerging tools — and apply them to agency needs.

Engineering Standards and Modernization (10%)

• Establish and enforce code review discipline, coding standards, automated testing practices, and CI/CD workflows (GitLab, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).
• Lead migration of legacy applications, including ColdFusion, onto modern frameworks and the Azure platform.
• Drive reduction of technical debt, vulnerability remediation, and production defect burn-down.

Technical Leadership and Mentorship (20%)

• Provide day-to-day technical direction to the development team and remove blockers so developers can deliver.
• Mentor and coach developers through pairing, code review, and design guidance, and support their technical growth.
• Contribute to sprint planning, backlog refinement, and estimation, and help balance workload across the team.
• Support the Director on technical strategy, technical hiring (screening and interviews), and onboarding of new developers.

This position is located in the Office of Information Technology.

Examples of duties

Qualifications

• A two-year (2) technical degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field and work experience in software development, including the design, development, testing, and maintenance of applications. Relevant work experience may substitute for the degree on a year-for-year basis.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Five (5) or more years of professional full-stack software development experience, including recent hands-on production work at a senior level.
• Track record leading the design and delivery of complex, user-facing applications across the full stack.
• Technically proficient in modern frontend and backen