Staff Software Engineer, Fullstack (ACF)

Skylight is a digital consultancy that helps government agencies deliver better public services. They are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to design, implement, and maintain software systems aimed at improving services for young adults transitioning out of the foster care system.

Responsibilities:

• Engineer a software product end-to-end — frontend and backend — as part of a cross-functional team that includes researchers, designers, product managers, and other engineers
• Design and optimize the platform’s LLM-powered features — semantic search across a knowledge base, prompt engineering, and retrieval quality — so foster youth get accurate, relevant guidance
• Build accessible, Section 508–compliant interfaces and the APIs and services behind them, keeping secure data exchanges reliable and performant
• Evaluate and improve the safety and quality of LLM interactions, so the experience stays trustworthy for the young people who rely on it
• Build secure, compliant software that meets federal security standards and defends against common vulnerabilities
• Achieve technical excellence by advocating for and adhering to lean-agile engineering practices such as API-first design, simple design, continuous integration, version control, and automated testing
• Mentor other engineers and share knowledge to strengthen the team’s engineering practice

Requirements:

• Experience designing and improving RAG based LLM systems including semantic search
• Experience designing multiple LLM/agent interactions to search and refine data sets
• Experience using LLMs to aggregate, refine, and review data sets
• Strong prompt improvement skills and understanding of LLM patterns that work
• Ability to write clean, working, and reusable code
• Can produce high-quality code by adhering to good practices such as automated testing
• Familiar with how to build secure, compliant software and defend against common vulnerabilities
• Possess a foundational understanding of data engineering, including how to use various datastores to handle persistent data in software systems
• Understand the different pieces of software systems and how to fit them together, while keeping performance, reliability, and availability in mind
• Understand the importance of always putting users at the center of your work, including thinking through the impact and implications of any code that you write
• Experience working on cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering, ops) in iterative delivery
• A mindset and work approach that aligns with our core values
• Familiarity with our specific stack: Python (LangChain and FastAPI), Postgres with pgvector, Next.js, and embedding and chat models such as Amazon Titan and Claude
• Experience working with databases and/or cloud infrastructure
• Familiarity with CI/CD best practices
• Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g., Docker, Terraform)
• Experience delivering technology in government, regulated industries, or other public-benefit settings
• A track record of staying aligned and accountable on remote teams