Technical Lead – Program Principal Engineer (C++) - NIH-NCBI

Overview

Black Canyon Consulting (BCC)  is searching for a Technical Lead - Program Principal Engineer to support our work for the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), an institute of the National Institutes of Health. This opportunity is full time and onsite at the NIH-NCBI in Bethesda, MD and/or remote work.

As a Program Principal Engineer, you will be directing Technical Leads and Teams to ensure architectural cohesion and collaboration within the program; for assigned projects, you will be responsible for all phases of software development, from vision, architecture, and design, to implementation, production rollout, and operations. You will collaborate with the Program Head, Technical Program Manager, and other Program Principal Engineers across programs, forming close relationships to enable effective communication, encouraging staff growth and knowledge sharing, guiding technological innovation, and ensuring sustainable software development practices and service delivery. Your contributions will have direct impact on prominent offerings, supporting researchers in finding, browsing, and downloading genomic data, such as virus and pathogen detection resources that help researchers study common diseases, combat pandemics (SARS-CoV-2, H1N1), and provide surveillance to prevent outbreaks from food-borne, hospital-acquired, and other clinically infectious pathogens.

Responsibilities include:

• Manage the efforts of the program's software development team in an Agile framework
• Work with a diverse group of scientists, bioinformaticians and other developers across the center to implement efficient bioinformatics algorithms
• Provide work estimates for development tasks
• Ensure on-schedule delivery of software solutions for the product line and organization
• Manage the development lifecycle of software for assigned products
• Research new technologies in pursuit of advancing the goals of the program and product line
• Direct and coordinate the actions of the development team
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to the development team
• Act as a liaison between the development team and program leadership
• Create and maintain technical documentation related to the product line
• Ensure high code quality for software development tasks

Qualifications:

The ideal candidate may or may not be a United States citizen and must have at least a Bachelor or Master of Science degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or Engineering or equivalent work experience.

We are looking for an individual with:

• A proven track record of managing an Agile software development team
• Experience working with highly available, high traffic web applications
• The ability to translate business requirements into executable software development tasks
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• The ability to troubleshoot technical and staffing roadblocks and mitigate resource risks

Required Skills:

• Software development experience in a Linux environment (5+ Years)
• Proficiency in at least one programming language (Java, C, C++)
• Experience working with Cloud data storage and processing platforms (AWS, GCP)
• Proficiency in at least one scripting language (BASH, Python)
• Experience working with SQL databases
• Ability to work with common structured documents (XML, JSON, CSV)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, unit tests, integration, and regression testing
• Strong presentation and collaboration skills
• Experience coaching team members

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with genetic and biological data
• Experience with software packaging and distribution, including Docker or other containerization mechanisms
• Experience with MongoDB or other NoSQL database technology
• Experience with workflow engines, particularly scientific workflows and DataOps