Senior Software Engineer Back End, Veterans Affairs (remote)

This is a fully remote position. 

Work on things that matter

Ad Hoc is a digital services company that helps the federal government better serve people. Our teams use modern, agile methods to design and engineer government systems that connect Veterans with services, bring affordable health care to millions of people, and support important programs like Head Start. And as we work to make critical government services intuitive, accessible, and human-centered, we’re also changing how the government thinks about and uses technology. If you thrive on change, want to help close the gap between consumer expectations and government services, and can see the possibilities in ambiguity, then we want you here with us. 

What matters most

Ad Hoc operates according to our commitment to inclusivity, acceptance, accountability, and humility. We aren’t heroes. We believe in missions larger than our individual selves and leave our egos at the door, learn from our mistakes, and iterate in order to better serve the people in our country. We prioritize building teams that represent the diversity of the people our government serves. We love the challenge of government-size projects. We want to bring skills to federal agencies, help them better meet the needs of their users, and close the gap between consumer expectations and government. 

Built for a remote life

Ad Hoc is remote-first and remote-always. We’ve designed our culture, communications, and tools to support a nationwide distributed team since the beginning. Being remote by design allows Ad Hoc to be thoughtful and intentional about creating diverse teams and supporting them with a work environment that fits their lives. With a generous PTO policy and Slack channels for every interest (from bird watching to space nerds to parenting) our culture embraces the things happening in your life. Maybe you need to adjust your schedule to care for your family or take a bike ride. At Ad Hoc, that’s embraced. 

The Veterans Affairs business unit helps transform the VA into a modern digital services organization where Veteran outcomes are at the center of every effort. We partner with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer - Digital Experience, the Office of Information Technology, Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Benefits Administration to design and deliver seamless user experiences for Veterans, their Families and Caregivers and VA employees.  By applying better practices in service design, product management and technology, we enable VA to increase the usage, throughput, quality and reliability of services and decrease the time Veterans spend waiting for outcomes.

What you’ll do

Our ideal Back End Software Engineer knows how to build large-scale production systems in modern agile environments. They write well-structured, tested, and secure code with little feedback or guidance. They’ve designed and implemented reliable and maintainable APIs and built services that integrate with external dependencies. They can articulate how the thing they've built fits into a larger ecosystem. They’re not afraid of large, complex problems. They take an active role in planning and delivery efforts, drawing on their experience to suggest better approaches or alternatives. As an Ad Hoc Back End Engineer, you’ll be:

• Shipping software that impacts the lives of millions of people
• Using modern programming languages and frameworks to build scalable services that gracefully integrate with legacy systems
• Building and working with APIs to support both the digital services we deliver as well as third-party usage
• Using unit and integration testing to ensure systems work as intended
• Helping us continuously, iteratively improve

What we hope you'll bring

• Minimum 7 years of experience developing consumer-facing web applications, services, and APIs
• Experience developing web applications in Ruby on Rails
• Experience with Rest API development and maintenance
• Experience with Authentication (OAuth and similar systems)
• Experience collaborating with external teams and stakeholders
• Understanding of the fundamental technologies of the web: HTTP, SSL, and APIs
• Experience and understanding of at least one agile methodology such as Scrum, XP, or SAFe.
• Experience with Amazon Web Services, in particular EC2, S3, and RDS.
• Solid spelling, grammar, and communication skills.

More than that, our ideal candidate wants to contribute to work that is bigger than themselves and wants to make a difference collaborating with their team. They care deeply about building better products, better relationships, and better trust in each interaction people have with their government. Th