Overview
The Senior Principal Software Engineer/Developer will serve as a lead enterprise architect and AI engineering authority, responsible for defining and delivering large-scale, mission-critical AI-enabled systems for HUD and the AIR platform. This role goes beyond hands-on development to include enterprise-wide technical strategy, cross-program architecture leadership, executive-level stakeholder engagement, and AI governance and innovation leadership in federal environments.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the primary technical authority across multiple programs, defining AI and application architecture strategy at the enterprise level
- Establish long-term modernization roadmaps for federal systems, aligning AI adoption with mission outcomes and compliance requirements
- Act as a trusted advisor to senior federal stakeholders (SES-level and above) on AI strategy, system modernization, and technology risk
- Drive technical decision-making across portfolios, ensuring scalability, interoperability, and long-term sustainability
- Own end-to-end enterprise architecture across multiple interconnected systems, platforms, and programs
- Lead design of complex, distributed AI-enabled architectures, including multi-cloud and hybrid environments
- Define and enforce architecture standards, reference architectures, and reusable frameworks across teams
- Lead development of advanced AI solutions, including RAG systems at scale, agentic workflows and orchestration frameworks, and AI-driven automation across mission workflows
- Establish AI engineering best practices and standards across the organization
- Evaluate and lead adoption of emerging AI technologies, guiding pilots into production-ready capabilities
- Drive innovation initiatives tied to AIR platform growth and differentiation
- Oversee multiple concurrent development efforts, ensuring alignment with architecture, security, and delivery goals
- Provide technical leadership across integrated product teams, including architects, engineers, and DevSecOps specialists
- Ensure delivery of high-availability, production-grade systems supporting federal missions
- Serve as a subject matter expert in federal AI policy and governance, including NIST AI RMF, OMB M-24-10, and EO 14110
- Establish and oversee organization-wide responsible AI frameworks, including model evaluation and validation, bias mitigation strategies, and explainability and auditability
- Ensure full compliance across programs with FISMA, FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, privacy, accessibility (Section 508), and security mandates
- Lead large-scale legacy modernization initiatives, including enterprise COBOL-to-Python transformations, migration to cloud-native, and microservices-based architectures
- Define repeatable modernization frameworks and accelerators
- Oversee implementa