Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (CDC)

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services.

We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today’s digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists.

The work we do matters.

About the job

At Skylight, software engineers design, implement, and maintain software systems to improve government services for users. This software is built to meet the needs of regular users of government services as well as Skylight’s partners in government. In this role, you’ll work across the stack, moving between frontend, backend, and infrastructure as the work requires.

We work with a team at CDC that builds and maintains an integrated disease surveillance system used by state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) health departments across the country. It gives jurisdictions case management for a wide range of conditions, and a secure path for moving epidemiologic, laboratory, and clinical data to CDC. Our role is to modernize it — a cloud-based platform designed to improve scalability, security, and adaptability to evolving public health needs.

The modernized platform is deliberately built as one shared system rather than a bespoke build per jurisdiction, which is what keeps it maintainable over the long run. But every health department arrives with its own legacy systems, data quirks, and technical maturity, and someone has to own the gap between the platform as built and a given jurisdiction’s reality. That gap is your full-time job: going deep with a jurisdiction, working out what’s actually blocking them, and building the targeted piece that unblocks them without turning into a permanent fork.

What to know going in

You may be the main point of contact for a health department, so communication carries as much weight here as technical range. The judgment that matters most is knowing when something needs a quick script and when it needs a conversation with the product team — and asking what this particular jurisdiction actually needs before reaching for a generic fix. If you’d rather be in the weeds with a real customer than removed from one, this is that role.

This role is contingent on Skylight being awarded the underlying contract. If we’re not awarded the contract, we’ll let you know promptly and discuss whether there are other opportunities that fit.

What you’ll do

• Partner with state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) health departments through onboarding, migration, and troubleshooting, learning their infrastructure and data flows firsthand
• Diagnose whether a blocker is a real product gap, a configuration issue, or something that needs a one-off integration, then build that piece yourself
• Write the targeted scripts, configurations, and integrations that get a jurisdiction onto the platform without forking the core product
• Work closely with the platform, data, and epidemiology teams to stay clear on what’s core-supported versus what’s jurisdiction-specific glue
• Surface patterns across jurisdictions back to the product team, so a recurring one-off becomes a real feature instead of getting rebuilt every time
• Build secure, compliant software that meets federal security standards and defends against common vulnerabilities

What we’re looking for

Basic qualifications

• Comfortable working directly with customers — clear communication matters as much as technical range
• Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform, Docker)
• Familiarity with CI/CD best practices
• Proficient in SQL
• Health IT or public health data experience, such as HL7 or disease surveillance systems
• Can produce high-quality code by adhering to good practices such as automated testing
• 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

Nice-to-haves

• Full-stack development experience with Java and Python
• Experience delivering technology in government, regulated industries, or other public-benefit settings
• Possess a foundational understanding of data engineering, including how to use various datastores to handle persistent data in software systems
• Familiar with how to build secure, compliant software and defend against common vulnerabilities
• Experience delivering technology in government, regulated industries, or other public-benefit settings
• A track record of staying aligned and accountable on remote teams

Don’t meet every qualification but think you can do the job? We’d still love to hear from you. If you’re excited about the role, apply. We consider candidates with a range of backgrounds and experiences.

Other requirements

• Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.
• All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories.
• You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.
• As a government contractor, you may be required to obtain a public trust or security clearance.
• You must complete a company background check successfully.

Logistics

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a fully remote position.

Travel

This role may require occasional or regular travel based on company, client, or contract needs.

Care package

Salary

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Forward Deployed Engineer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

• Associate Forward Deployed Engineer: $90,000–$125,000
• Forward Deployed Engineer I: $120,000–$140,000
• Forward Deployed Engineer II: $135,000–$160,000
• Senior Forward Deployed Engineer: $150,000–$185,000
• Staff Forward Deployed Engineer: $170,000–$203,000
• Principal Forward Deployed Engineer: $180,000–$230,000

These ranges apply if the contract is awarded. Compensation begins on your first day of work.

Benefits

Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways:

• Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
• Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
• Flexible paid-time-off policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
• Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents
• Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
• Business development / sales bonuses
• Referral bonuses
• Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development
• Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
• Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
• Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
• An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good

Interview tips

Our process includes a preliminary screen, a skills interview, a behavioral interview, and a reverse interview where you meet your potential team — usually four conversations across two to three weeks. Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview:

• Visit our join page to learn more about how our interview process works.
• Check out our Career Pathways framework to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them.
• Browse our case studies to learn more about our work.

If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at recruiting@skylight.digital.

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.