Infrastructure Engineer (Software)

About Nava

Nava 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 

You will work on small teams to build scalable infrastructure for government services that millions of Americans depend on. You care deeply about working on technology that improves people’s lives but doesn’t think technology is always the answer. You are passionate about making large-scale systems secure, scalable, and fast. 

You will be working within the government ecosystem, which means working, sometimes closely, with other government contractors and civil servants. Working with people outside of your company means you'll likely encounter different working styles and cultural norms. At the same time, working as part of a larger team allows us to deliver on projects of larger scale and complexity.

The government also imposes a level of bureaucracy that is typically not present in a company of our size in the private sector. We operate in a regulated environment, where checks and compliance are built into the process of building software. This can make the path to production slower and some decisions, such as tools and processes, lie outside of our control. You view these as challenges and can look for creative engineering solutions within existing constraints to provide the highest-leverage solutions to fulfill our mission.

You will be working with legacy systems. While we work to modernize government technology, we do that within an existing ecosystem. We always focus on providing real, short-term value while keeping our eyes on long-term goals. This usually means getting to know legacy systems, often with poor documentation and unreliable narrators, and trying to determine how to replicate the systems' behavior or how to integrate with these systems. This is a great opportunity for engineers who enjoy software archaeology. If you care deeply about how software systems work over time, and building systems for longevity and resilience, this work is for you.

What you'll do

• Work with a cross-functional team to deliver on project requirements
• Create and maintain CI/CD pipelines
• Code, manage, configure, and maintain services
• Update documentation and runbooks
• Join our on-call rotation as a first line of defense during production issues
• Take part in hiring activities (e.g., submitting referrals, conducting interviews, and attending interview debriefs), as needed
• Building and maintaining Terraform IaC and GitHub Actions workflows
• Working with other engineers to ensure the performance and reliability of the services running on our AWS infrastructure
• Identifying and proposing infrastructure solutions to address client needs
• Making infrastructure best practice recommendations to stakeholders

Required skills

• Previous experience maintaining a medium or large-scale production system or COTS products using Infrastructure as Code
• Broad experience with Cloud offerings in AWS
• Significant experience in one or more of the following areas: Cloud infrastructure, Unix/Linux, Windows, Scripting
• Ability to automate procedural tasks using scripting in Python, Javascript, Ruby, or Bash
• Experience with Terraform and/or CloudFormation, Ansible, or other IaC and automation tools
• Tenacity to dive into problems and iterate in working code
• Equal parts systems thinker and advocate for users
• Highly resourceful, reliable, and detail-oriented
• Ability to think strategically around trade-offs and short-term vs. long-term benefits
• An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative, and positive mindset
• Excellent written and real-time communication, technical and otherwise

Desired skills

• Experience: Minimum of 5 years
• Education: Due to contractual requirements, this role requires a Bachelor's Degree (in any discipline) or 4 years of experience in lieu of a degree

Other requirements

All roles at Nava require the following:

● Must be legally authorized to work in the United States and meet any other requirements for government contracts for which they are hired.

● Candidates offered a job at Nava must have work authorization that does not require visa sponsorship, either currently or in the future. Please be aware that most of our positions require U.S. citizenship or a green card.

● May be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information or applicants who are eligible for security clearances.

Perks working with Nava

● Competitive benefits: We prioritize your well-being, offering highly competitive medical, dental, and vision benefits.

● Generous time off: Enjoy 20 days of accrued PTO, 12 paid federal holidays, 5 prorated floating holidays, and unlimited sick leave.

● Annual discretionary bonus: Paid annually to eligible employees. When Nava does well, you do well.

● Parental leave: Receive 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave and weekly meal deliveries during your leave.

● Employee wellness program: Access our comprehensive Employee Wellness Program.

● Virtual doctor visits: Enjoy zero copay virtual doctor visits through UHC.

● Fertility support: Benefit from fertility support and treatment options.

● Sabbatical leave: We offer a sabbatical leave program.

● 401k contributions: We match 4% of your salary in 401k contributions.

● Flexible work arrangements: We offer flexible work arrangements to suit your needs.

● Home office setup: Receive assistance with your home office setup and a monthly phone allowance.

● Utilities reimbursement: Get a monthly partial reimbursement for utilities (where applicable).

● Learning and development: Access our comprehensive learning and development program.

● Tuition and Professional development budget: Receive a prorated annual tuition and professional development budget and a LinkedIn Learning license.

● Equity stock options: Benefit from equity stock options.

● Employee referral program: Participate in our employee referral program.

● Commuter benefits: Enjoy commuter benefits.

● Insurance coverage: Receive short and long-term disability insurance, as well as life and accidental death insurance.

● Inclusive culture: Join our diverse, inclusive, highly collaborative, and vibrant culture that supports remote work.

Location

We have fully remote options if you reside in one of the following states:

Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.

*If you are not living in one of the states listed above, unfortunately, you will not be considered for a position at this time. 

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Nava PBC equal opportunity employer that is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, age, gender, religious or political beliefs, national origin or heritage, marital status, disability, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, genetic information, pregnancy, status as a protected veteran or any characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion not only reflects our values as a public benefit corporation but also enriches our ability to do our work. Learn more about where we are today and hope to be by 2025.

Please contact the recruiting team at [email protected] if you would like to request reasonable accommodation during the application or interviewing process.

We participate in E-Verify. Upon hire, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. This role requires you to work from the contiguous United States.