Principal Software Engineer, AI & Application Engineering

Coforma is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to build and support a retirement benefits management system for federal government employees. The role combines full-stack application engineering with AI and machine learning development, including secure, accessible applications and AI-powered workflows.

Responsibilities:

• Build modular, responsive web applications using React and/or Vue.js in alignment with accessibility and UX best practices
• Design and implement secure, scalable APIs using TypeScript, ASP.NET Core, or Java (Spring Framework)
• Integrate with enterprise systems via SOAP/RESTful APIs with robust error handling
• Implement authentication, authorization, and secure configuration in accordance with client agency security policies
• Optimize database access and performance using SQL Server and Entity Framework Core
• Add observability through structured logging, metrics, and tracing and support incident response with clear runbooks
• Design and implement AI agents and large language model (LLM)-powered applications that automate and enhance retirement data workflows
• Build, evaluate, and maintain machine learning models for classification, prediction, and anomaly detection
• Integrate LLMs into production systems using prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agentic frameworks
• Develop and maintain data pipelines that ingest, validate, and transform large-scale structured and unstructured data
• Apply explainable AI practices appropriate for a regulated, auditable government environment
• Track model performance and manage the machine learning (ML) lifecycle using tools such as MLflow
• Participate in Agile ceremonies, conduct code reviews, and contribute to release planning and documentation
• Work across technical and policy teams to translate business requirements into reliable, AI-driven solutions
• Uphold software engineering best practices such as version control, CI/CD, testing, and peer review across both application and AI workstreams

Requirements:

• Full-time resident of the contiguous United States (must be legally authorized to work in the US now and in the future without sponsorship)
• Proficiency in React, Vue.js, JavaScript, TypeScript, ASP.NET Core, and Java (Spring Framework)
• Strong SQL skills and experience with SQL Server as well as familiarity with EF Core
• Experience with enterprise integrations including message queues, database RPC, REST, and SOAP APIs
• Deep knowledge and strong understanding of authentication, authorization, and security best practices
• Hands-on experience building or deploying LLM-based solutions (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, or open-source models)
• Familiarity with agentic AI patterns (tool use, planning, memory, and multi-step reasoning)
• Experience with RAG pipelines, vector databases, and embedding-based retrieval
• Professional experience using coding agents such as CoPilot or Claude Code
• Effective prompt engineering and experience evaluating LLM outputs for reliability and correctness
• 8+ years of experience building applications with open-source programming languages
• 8+ years of experience working with modern frameworks, libraries, or runtimes
• 8+ years of experience working with APIs and databases of various types
• 8+ years of experience working with infrastructure tools and Infrastructure as Code
• Experience developing software in a remote environment
• Experience working in the digital services, federal government, or federal government contracting industries