Jobs and Careers

Staff Software Engineer (FDA)

United States, United StatesRemotefull_timeVerifiedPosted 5 Jun 2025

💰 $180,000/yr($90,000/yr – $180,000/yr)

About the role

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today's digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists. The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, software engineers design, implement, and maintain software systems to improve government services for users. This software is built to meet the needs of regular users of government services as well as Skylight’s partners in government.

What you’ll do

Engineer a software product as part of a cross-functional team, which includes user experience researchers and designers, product managers, engineers, and other functional specialists
Achieve technical excellence by advocating for and adhering to lean-agile engineering principles and practices such as API-first design, simple design, continuous integration, version control, and automated testing
Select and use the right tools, frameworks, languages, and technologies for the job, with a preference for open-source solutions
Analyze systems to identify technical debt, instability, unreliability, and other opportunities for improvement, and design, document, and communicate solutions

What we're looking for

Minimum qualifications

Can write clean working code in various programming languages that others can easily reuse
Ability to work in a shared codebase and follow leading programming practices
Possess an understanding of the different types of testing required to reliably deliver software to production
Can build and understand data models, encrypt data at rest and in transit, and optimize database queries
Understand how to build secure applications and defend against common security vulnerabilities
Ability to contribute to writing user stories and associated acceptance criteria from a technical perspective
Experience working with APIs, including design, integration, and troubleshooting

Nice-to-have qualifications

Experience working with databases and/or cloud infrastructure
Familiarity with CI/CD best practices
Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g., Docker, Terraform)
Experience with multiple programming languages and/or full-stack development
Prior experience working in the civic tech space
Experience working in a remote-team environment

Don’t meet 100% of the criteria but think you can do the job? We’d love to chat anyway! We’re on a mission to build diverse teams, and studies have shown that women and marginalized folks are less likely to apply to jobs if they don’t check every box.

Other requirements

All work must be conducted within the U.S.
You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.
As a government contractor, you may be required to obtain a public trust or security clearance.
You may be required to complete a company background check successfully.

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a fully remote position.

Care package

Salary

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Software Engineer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

Associate Software Engineer: $90,000–$125,000
Software Engineer I: $120,000–$140,000
Software Engineer II: $135,000–$160,000
Senior Software Engineer: $150,000–$185,000
Staff Software Engineer: $170,000–$203,000
Principal Software Engineer: $180,000–$230,000