10x: Principal Software Engineer
This job posting has closed.
Please see our other open positions.
Basic information
Open to U.S. citizens or nationals (residents of American Samoa and Swains
Island). Subject to background check. Full information
is
available on
USAJOBS.
Supervisory status: Non-Supervisory
Job title: 10x: Principal Software Engineer
Official title in USAJOBS: IT Specialist (APPSW)
Number of vacancies: 1
Location: Anywhere in the U.S. (remote)
Salary range: GS-15 ($143,736 to $191,900)
Your salary, including base and locality, will be determined upon selection,
dependent on your actual duty location. Please note the maximum salary available
for the GS pay system is $191,900. For specific details on locality pay, please
visit OPM’s Salaries & Wages page
or for a salary calculator
OPM’s 2024 General Schedule (GS) Salary Calculator. You can find more
information in our
compensation and benefits section.
Travel requirement:
Occasional travel may be required up to 10%-20% per year.
Work schedule:
Full time.
Appointment type:
This is a term appointment. Initial appointments are made lasting longer than
1 year, but not to exceed 4 years. GSA, may extend an appointment up to 4
additional years. No individual hired under this DHA can serve in excess of 8
years with GSA, and cannot be transferred to positions that are not IT
positions.
Learn more about the benefits of working at
GSA and
TTS.
Role summary
10x, the federal government’s very own venture studio, is seeking a versatile and talented individual to join our team as a Software Engineer. In this role, you will have the unique opportunity to work on a diverse range of projects combining your skills in software development with research, product and design-thinking to create exceptional digital experiences for the American public.
Check out 10x website, process, and our public project board to see the types of projects we work on. If you are committed to improving government services for all who need them, and to helping the civil servants who deliver those services, this is the position for you.
Position Summary:
As a Software Engineer at 10x, you will be a researcher, product designer, builder and a catalyst. As a rotating member of various product teams, you will solve large complex problems while spreading a user-centered, open, and transparent work culture. You might be writing code one day, going to meet with members from partner agencies another day, and launching a new product that will impact the lives of Americans across the country the next week. 10x is an open source team, so most of what you work on will be open source.
This role is perfect for you if you have a multidisciplinary skill-set and care deeply about building great public-facing digital products and services. You should have a deep interest in AI and other emerging technologies, with a focus on improving how the government builds technology, makes sure that new technologies serve the best interests of the public, and appropriately manages new types of risks.
10x’s relationship to AI:
Currently, around 15% of the 10x investment pipeline entails potential AI solutions, though we expect this number to grow steadily over time. Put another way, 15% of our work relates to problems which might admit to solutions involving ML, NLP and related technologies, but which also might be effectively solved with more conventional tools.
As a principal engineer at 10x, you will be expected to know the difference, and to be capable of bringing software solutions from concept through MVP and to validation in the market, regardless of the underlying technology required.
The majority of 10x work entails figuring out if a problem is worth solving, or if a particular solution is likely to be fruitful. Additionally, 85% of our current pipeline is unlikely to benefit from AI tooling, so if you’re looking for a place to spend the majority of your time building AI solutions, this probably isn’t the right fit.
We are not looking for AI evangelists, nor are we looking for AI skeptics. We’re looking for civic technologists with a passion for choosing the right tool for the job and a deep well of experience making difficult, fuzzy, early product decisions.
10x is one of a small number of teams tasked with improving technology acumen across the federal government. The opportunities and challenges presented by using AI in day-to-day government operations are myriad, but the technical talent needed to be able to identify the correct technology stack for any solution is rare and unevenly distributed. The proliferation of capable foundational AI models has created a need for software engineers with a strong product focus to be able to serve on multi-disciplinary teams and bring the knowledge necessary to help guide the technical discovery, feasibility and risk management work, in addition to development, that will help 10x figure out the most appropriate technology around which to build a given product or service.
Make no mistake, opportunities to deploy AI foundation models in government already exist. Whether we are looking at using NLP tools to ascertain the public’s intent through plain language interfaces, exploring opportunities to deliver heretofore impossible document automation tools to government staff, or providing semantic search and summarization for niche sets of documents, there are prototypes to be built, assumptions to tested, products to be designed and risks to be actively managed today.
Skill set:
You’ll need to be capable of building scalable web applications from the ground up, you should have decent experience with devops best practices and a reasonable familiarity with security, privacy and web accessibility best practices. You should understand the basics of building ETL pipelines, and you should be unafraid to dive into integrating with legacy systems written in unfamiliar languages and which use unfamiliar application patterns or infrastructure (though this is relatively rare).
10x’s core languages are Ruby, Python, JavaScript, and Go. You should have extensive experience with at least one of those languages and should be at least reasonably comfortable in python. You should be proficient in web development, relational databases, and using Unix-like operating systems. You should understand engineering best practices such as source control, automated testing, continuous integration and deployment, and peer review. You should be excited to build your expertise in security, privacy and compliance best practices. Good candidates will have a background working on cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams that deliver digital products and services in an incremental, user-focused environment.
Additionally, you should be familiar with accessing AI foundation models via API interfaces and with common LLM workflow design patterns such as query routing, DAG-defined multi-step flows and tool-enabled workflows. You’ll also be expected to be able to stand-up basic prototypes using open source models such LLaMa-2 variants for the purpose of running spikes on technical feasibility and discovery. You should be familiar with the trade-offs and general capabilities of fine-tuning, such as the balance between improving niche query performance and the loss of general query performance. Everything else can be learned along the way.
The best candidates will have experience participating in challenging, but productive, small-group discussions about key directional decisions for products and services that have not yet proven their value.
As a software engineer on the 10x Delivery Team, your duties will extend to all phases of the development cycles for all types of digital products and services, both AI-enabled and not.
Key objectives
1. You will contribute high-quality, well-tested, maintainable code across an entire project lifecycle, using modern software development best practices.
-
Practice and enthusiastically share engineering methodologies and tools throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.
-
Use usability research, analytics, and other metrics to influence project planning and design.
-
Participate in preparing yes or no pitch recommendations for additional funding when your project come to the end of each phase
-
Participate in code review, architecture discussions, and feature prioritization.
-
Take pride of ownership in all projects you touch; leave code and docs better than you found them.
-
Contribute to shared best practices for documentation, tests, style fixes, accessibility, performance, security, etc.
-
Deliver code that is easy to deploy, update, and monitor by ensuring the tooling for this is present at the beginning of the software development cycle or by introducing tooling into an existing project as needed.
2. You will participate as part of the engineering team, practicing and enthusiastically share agile methodologies throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.
-
Work within a distributed multidisciplinary agile team(s) by participating in constructive discussions, sharing knowledge openly, and demonstrating value (story-telling) for technical and non-technical contributions.
-
Support a safe and inclusive workplace as well as a positive team culture where diversity and individual differences are valued and leveraged.
-
Provide visibility into progress, communicate blockers and challenges, and ask for help when necessary.
-
Understand elements of agile methodology (scrum, kanban, etc) without being overzealous about any particular tool or strategy.
-
Practice human centered design, user testing, feature prioritization, DevOps, and other foundational best-practices of modern software product development.
Qualifications
Provide as much detail as possible on your resume so that we can evaluate your
previous experience. Follow our
guidance on creating a federal style resume.
Failure to provide required information may result in disqualification.
For each job on your resume, provide:
- The exact dates you held each job (from month/year to month/year or “present”)
- Number of hours per week you worked (if part time)
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS:
To qualify, you must have one (1) year of specialized experience at the next
lower GS-grade (or equivalent). Specialized experience is defined as follows:
- Experience delivering projects, tools or products as part of an engineering team. This includes experience developing or architecting complex modern web applications or cloud infrastructure using approaches such as test-driven development, continuous integration & deployment, or distributed version control such as github. Candidates should demonstrate experience providing project leadership and experience with agile development methodologies.
How to Apply
This job posting has closed.
Please see our other open positions.
Basic information
Open to U.S. citizens or nationals (residents of American Samoa and Swains Island). Subject to background check. Full information is available on USAJOBS.
Supervisory status: Non-Supervisory
Job title: 10x: Principal Software Engineer
Official title in USAJOBS: IT Specialist (APPSW)
Number of vacancies: 1
Location: Anywhere in the U.S. (remote)
Salary range: GS-15 ($143,736 to $191,900)
Your salary, including base and locality, will be determined upon selection, dependent on your actual duty location. Please note the maximum salary available for the GS pay system is $191,900. For specific details on locality pay, please visit OPM’s Salaries & Wages page or for a salary calculator OPM’s 2024 General Schedule (GS) Salary Calculator. You can find more information in our compensation and benefits section.
Travel requirement: Occasional travel may be required up to 10%-20% per year.
Work schedule: Full time.
Appointment type: This is a term appointment. Initial appointments are made lasting longer than 1 year, but not to exceed 4 years. GSA, may extend an appointment up to 4 additional years. No individual hired under this DHA can serve in excess of 8 years with GSA, and cannot be transferred to positions that are not IT positions.
Learn more about the benefits of working at GSA and TTS.
Role summary
10x, the federal government’s very own venture studio, is seeking a versatile and talented individual to join our team as a Software Engineer. In this role, you will have the unique opportunity to work on a diverse range of projects combining your skills in software development with research, product and design-thinking to create exceptional digital experiences for the American public. Check out 10x website, process, and our public project board to see the types of projects we work on. If you are committed to improving government services for all who need them, and to helping the civil servants who deliver those services, this is the position for you.
Position Summary:
As a Software Engineer at 10x, you will be a researcher, product designer, builder and a catalyst. As a rotating member of various product teams, you will solve large complex problems while spreading a user-centered, open, and transparent work culture. You might be writing code one day, going to meet with members from partner agencies another day, and launching a new product that will impact the lives of Americans across the country the next week. 10x is an open source team, so most of what you work on will be open source. This role is perfect for you if you have a multidisciplinary skill-set and care deeply about building great public-facing digital products and services. You should have a deep interest in AI and other emerging technologies, with a focus on improving how the government builds technology, makes sure that new technologies serve the best interests of the public, and appropriately manages new types of risks.
10x’s relationship to AI:
Currently, around 15% of the 10x investment pipeline entails potential AI solutions, though we expect this number to grow steadily over time. Put another way, 15% of our work relates to problems which might admit to solutions involving ML, NLP and related technologies, but which also might be effectively solved with more conventional tools.
As a principal engineer at 10x, you will be expected to know the difference, and to be capable of bringing software solutions from concept through MVP and to validation in the market, regardless of the underlying technology required. The majority of 10x work entails figuring out if a problem is worth solving, or if a particular solution is likely to be fruitful. Additionally, 85% of our current pipeline is unlikely to benefit from AI tooling, so if you’re looking for a place to spend the majority of your time building AI solutions, this probably isn’t the right fit. We are not looking for AI evangelists, nor are we looking for AI skeptics. We’re looking for civic technologists with a passion for choosing the right tool for the job and a deep well of experience making difficult, fuzzy, early product decisions.
10x is one of a small number of teams tasked with improving technology acumen across the federal government. The opportunities and challenges presented by using AI in day-to-day government operations are myriad, but the technical talent needed to be able to identify the correct technology stack for any solution is rare and unevenly distributed. The proliferation of capable foundational AI models has created a need for software engineers with a strong product focus to be able to serve on multi-disciplinary teams and bring the knowledge necessary to help guide the technical discovery, feasibility and risk management work, in addition to development, that will help 10x figure out the most appropriate technology around which to build a given product or service. Make no mistake, opportunities to deploy AI foundation models in government already exist. Whether we are looking at using NLP tools to ascertain the public’s intent through plain language interfaces, exploring opportunities to deliver heretofore impossible document automation tools to government staff, or providing semantic search and summarization for niche sets of documents, there are prototypes to be built, assumptions to tested, products to be designed and risks to be actively managed today.
Skill set:
You’ll need to be capable of building scalable web applications from the ground up, you should have decent experience with devops best practices and a reasonable familiarity with security, privacy and web accessibility best practices. You should understand the basics of building ETL pipelines, and you should be unafraid to dive into integrating with legacy systems written in unfamiliar languages and which use unfamiliar application patterns or infrastructure (though this is relatively rare).
10x’s core languages are Ruby, Python, JavaScript, and Go. You should have extensive experience with at least one of those languages and should be at least reasonably comfortable in python. You should be proficient in web development, relational databases, and using Unix-like operating systems. You should understand engineering best practices such as source control, automated testing, continuous integration and deployment, and peer review. You should be excited to build your expertise in security, privacy and compliance best practices. Good candidates will have a background working on cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams that deliver digital products and services in an incremental, user-focused environment.
Additionally, you should be familiar with accessing AI foundation models via API interfaces and with common LLM workflow design patterns such as query routing, DAG-defined multi-step flows and tool-enabled workflows. You’ll also be expected to be able to stand-up basic prototypes using open source models such LLaMa-2 variants for the purpose of running spikes on technical feasibility and discovery. You should be familiar with the trade-offs and general capabilities of fine-tuning, such as the balance between improving niche query performance and the loss of general query performance. Everything else can be learned along the way.
The best candidates will have experience participating in challenging, but productive, small-group discussions about key directional decisions for products and services that have not yet proven their value. As a software engineer on the 10x Delivery Team, your duties will extend to all phases of the development cycles for all types of digital products and services, both AI-enabled and not.
Key objectives
1. You will contribute high-quality, well-tested, maintainable code across an entire project lifecycle, using modern software development best practices.
-
Practice and enthusiastically share engineering methodologies and tools throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.
-
Use usability research, analytics, and other metrics to influence project planning and design.
-
Participate in preparing yes or no pitch recommendations for additional funding when your project come to the end of each phase
-
Participate in code review, architecture discussions, and feature prioritization.
-
Take pride of ownership in all projects you touch; leave code and docs better than you found them.
-
Contribute to shared best practices for documentation, tests, style fixes, accessibility, performance, security, etc.
-
Deliver code that is easy to deploy, update, and monitor by ensuring the tooling for this is present at the beginning of the software development cycle or by introducing tooling into an existing project as needed.
2. You will participate as part of the engineering team, practicing and enthusiastically share agile methodologies throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.
-
Work within a distributed multidisciplinary agile team(s) by participating in constructive discussions, sharing knowledge openly, and demonstrating value (story-telling) for technical and non-technical contributions.
-
Support a safe and inclusive workplace as well as a positive team culture where diversity and individual differences are valued and leveraged.
-
Provide visibility into progress, communicate blockers and challenges, and ask for help when necessary.
-
Understand elements of agile methodology (scrum, kanban, etc) without being overzealous about any particular tool or strategy.
-
Practice human centered design, user testing, feature prioritization, DevOps, and other foundational best-practices of modern software product development.
Qualifications
Provide as much detail as possible on your resume so that we can evaluate your previous experience. Follow our guidance on creating a federal style resume.
Failure to provide required information may result in disqualification.
For each job on your resume, provide:
- The exact dates you held each job (from month/year to month/year or “present”)
- Number of hours per week you worked (if part time)
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS:
To qualify, you must have one (1) year of specialized experience at the next lower GS-grade (or equivalent). Specialized experience is defined as follows:
- Experience delivering projects, tools or products as part of an engineering team. This includes experience developing or architecting complex modern web applications or cloud infrastructure using approaches such as test-driven development, continuous integration & deployment, or distributed version control such as github. Candidates should demonstrate experience providing project leadership and experience with agile development methodologies.
