Sr./Principal Software Engineer (Chief Engineer CMS/Federal Health Programs)

Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation focused on simplifying government services. They are seeking a Senior / Principal Engineer who will serve as the technical authority for a critical platform at CMS, ensuring the delivery of secure and scalable systems that meet federal compliance standards.

Responsibilities:

• Own end-to-end technical delivery of complex CMS systems, including APIs, data platforms, and cloud-native services
• Act as the final technical decision-maker when tradeoffs affect delivery timelines, risk, or compliance
• Ensure systems meet non-functional requirements for reliability, scalability, performance, accessibility, and cost efficiency
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to tech leads and senior engineers across multiple teams and workstreams
• Translate architectural vision and program goals into pragmatic, buildable, and maintainable solutions
• Enforce architectural patterns that promote loose coupling, interoperability, reuse, and alignment with CMS enterprise standards
• Balance long-term platform health and modernization goals with near-term delivery realities
• Collaborate with the Chief Security Engineer to ensure compliance with federal security requirements (FISMA Moderate/High, NIST 800-53) and support ATO and continuous monitoring activities
• Own production readiness, operational maturity, and incident response, including observability and on-call practices
• Serve as a trusted technical partner to CMS stakeholders and cross-functional teams, clearly communicating complex technical decisions

Requirements:

• 8+ years of experience leading the implementation of enterprise-scale systems, preferably in the federal healthcare domain
• Proven success in delivering scalable, reliable, and secure IT infrastructures integrating hardware, software, cloud, databases, and APIs
• Knowledge of modern programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, JavaScript, C++) for system development and integration
• Experience with cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud to build cloud-based solutions
• Organizing, storing, and modeling data to support system operations and analytics
• Applying robust security measures to protect systems from cyber threats
• Evaluating systems, identifying issues, and creating innovative solutions aligned with business goals
• Understanding network infrastructure and protocols for seamless system integration
• Aligning IT solutions with business objectives and managing project resources and budgets effectively
• Clearly conveying technical concepts, leading teams, making decisions, and fostering collaboration
• Staying updated with evolving technologies and continuously enhancing skills
• Legal authorization to work in the United States
• Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired
• Work authorization that doesn't require visa sponsorship, now or in the future
• May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract