Software Engineering Manager

About NavaNava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple, effective, and accessible to all. Since 2013, federal, state, and local government agencies have trusted Nava to build transformative digital services to help people access public benefits. Meeting our mission is an opportunity to restore trust between people and public institutions. We focus on populations that are the least protected because the stakes are higher.

As a client services company, we work with government agencies to improve how people apply for benefits, navigate their health care, and more. We bill for our time, selling our expertise and problem-solving methodology to government clients. Our clients hire us to help improve their products and services so that their users and beneficiaries have a better customer experience.

These end-users—the humans who benefit from our work—are at the core of everything we do. We research beneficiaries’ needs to help our government clients better deliver on their missions, providing everyone at Nava opportunities to do meaningful, impactful work.

Position summary Nava’s Software Engineering Manager is responsible for the career growth of their direct reports, ensuring reports receive guidance, relevant feedback and are correctly compensated. Although the focus is on technical leadership, the incumbent is also a technical contributor who engages with IT management, technical delivery teams, users, and vendors to ensure the successful design, development, and delivery of technology-based solutions in support of Nava’s culture and mission: Be Active Stewards, Pursue the Root Cause, Think Long-Term, Build Together, Inclusion is Essential and Progress Takes Work.

What you'll Do:

• Writing and reviewing code and technical artifacts
• Completing exploratory work using new tools or languages and teaching other engineers new languages/tools learned
• Working closely with cross-functional product teams to identify and mitigate technical risks
• Guiding the engineering team on planning, estimation, prioritization, trade-offs, balancing technical debt and meeting project milestones
• Reviewing architecture and designs from other project teamsEnsuring code is compliant, following standards and best practices
• Scoping and sequencing technical deliverables
• Breaking down and sequencing technical work
• Coordinating internally and externally to assess tech restraints and opportunities
• Navigating technical approval processes
• Assisting in sprint planning, quarterly planning and backlog refinement
• Acting as a bridge between design and engineering for proper alignment to deliver expected user experience
• Identifying gaps in current strategy and learning where problems may arise to identify a method to resolve the problemTechnical policy writingHandling on call duties for the team
• Facilitating regular 1:1s with direct reports, coaching junior engineers, addressing underperformance, recognizing excellent achievement
• Providing honest and thorough performance reviews, making recommendations for promotion, advocating for direct reports, assisting in professional growth and creating an environment where the team feels psychologically safe
• Performing timesheet review and approval and approval of expense reports
• Participating in hiring activities such as employment interviews Setting team norms to be intentional about the culture Nava wants to establish
• Assisting other engineers in building team rapport
• Participating in biweekly retro meetings to reflect on successes and failures on sprints and to capture thoughts on any action items for work that was completed recently
• Collaborating with teams and stakeholders on near and long term product roadmaps
• Participating in client stakeholder meetings related to growth
• Representing Nava in stakeholder meetingsCommunicating project progress to clients, customers, vendors, and other relevant stakeholders as needed
• Contributing to business development bids and proposals
• Working with government stakeholders to obtain buy-in on technical initiatives
• Strategizing with leadership on ways to grow projects
• Attending conferences and networking with potential clients
• Reviewing strategy plans and outlining technical requirements for potential work
• Developing software prototypes and presenting to government stakeholders
• Writing plans and estimates for developing software

Required Skills

• 6+ years experience developing software in a team environment, preferably building distributed systems
• Experience designing and implementing application architectures and code that is highly scalable, available, and performant
• Self-directed, requiring minimal supervision
• 2 or more years experience as a People Manager
• An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative and positive mindset
• Ability to think holistically around engineering issues
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, technical and otherwise
• Ability to work with others on a team