Who We Are

Kessel Run is a U.S. Air Force unit revolutionizing Department of Defense (DoD) software development, acquisition, delivery, and sustainment. We aim to sense and respond to conflict in any domain, anytime, anywhere.
Yes, we are THE Air Force. If hired, you will join us as a civilian working alongside uniformed Airmen.

Kessel Run delivers DoD software applications and solutions that are used every day by Airmen worldwide. Kessel Run gives warfighters the edge they need to win tomorrow's fights, today. We value ideas over rank, intense customer focus, bias for action, and continuous evolution.

Serve your country and help us solve our nation's toughest, most complex challenges.

Please note: Our headquarters is located at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Candidates who have the ability to work in person at Hanscom Air Force Base 1-2 times per week are strongly preferred. We will provide relocation assistance to those who wish to move to the local area. We will only consider exceptional remote candidates.

The Position

The Targeting and GeoIntelligence (T&G) Portfolio Deputy Technical Lead is responsible for maintaining technical awareness of product teams and for supporting the portfolio T&G Lead Engineer. You are charged with guiding product teams on successful implementation of the Wing Command & Control (WingC2, your branch) T&G technical strategy. You will facilitate information sharing between leadership and product teams and work with WingC2's T&G leadership to solve high-level problems.

The goal is to provide hands-on support to engineers as they execute the WingC2's T&G strategy while also balancing code, platforms and system health. We look to the Portfolio Engineers to provide guidance to product teams, to direct technical advice, and empower whenever possible. They advocate for team engineering staff concerns with portfolio and WingC2's T&G leadership.

A Portfolio Engineer should have practical Agile and Lean software development and hardware integration experience as well as a wealth of pragmatic experience with industry best practices (e.g. Test Driven Development (TDD), eXtreme Programming (XP), 12-factor principles, Model Based System Engineering (MBSE), and Infrastructure as Code (IAC)).

Ideally, this individual has experience in facilitation and communication, and opts for simplicity. They should value and be able to articulate the importance of focusing on outcomes over outputs, from strategy to implementation.

Who You Are

• You earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or similar.
• You have an overall strong technical foundation in software and virtual environment development best practices and processes
• You have strong technical and/or architectural experiences
• You have good written and oral communication skills
• You have a strong desire to grow and mentors others
• You are able to reflect on and empathize with others perspectives
• You have demonstrated leadership abilities in current or previous jobs and looking to expand your scope beyond a single team
• You are a continuous learner
• You have strong technical skills with Object Oriented Programing (OOP) and web development
• You are patient and persistent in getting work done
• You actively participate in the engineering community (online, in-person, cross-team, workshops, etc)
• You can operate in ambiguity, but understand that others don't
• You are able to reflect on and empathize with others perspectives
• You have worked with 3rd party/contractor provided development capability
• Exceptional time management and communication skills
• Experience launching software at scale in a fast-paced product organization
• A service mentality - you look to help others
• You value the mission of Kessel Run and the U.S. Air Force
• You take extreme ownership of the excellence of your work and performance
• You believe in creative, integrated teamwork and diversity of thought
• You foster and practice integrity and thought leadership
• You are a U.S. citizen and are eligible to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance

What You Will Do

• Facilitate communication between engineering leadership and product teams to collectively problem solve and execute established plans
• Pair with engineers on product teams to remove technical blockers and resolve technical challenges
• Collaborate with portfolio leadership on how best to achieve product line and portfolio goals
• Architect and develop solutions to ambiguous problems with significant impact
• Define engineering standards and best practices
• Advocate for development and implementation of modern, improved technical approaches; fostering a continuous improvement mindset with our engineering staff
• Mentor both senior and junior engineers on best practices and establish personalized development paths for them to grow
• Develop roadmaps and products that synergize development of complex platform features across product teams.
• Analyze code and feature implementation across multiple product teams
• Tackle cross-cutting engineering concerns; fostering an environment for engineers across the organization to collaborate on solutions
• Find opportunities for automation wherever possible and push teams to invest
• Support and help shape the technical approach as we evolve into a cohesive system of systems
• Oversee System Engineering practices (e.g. Configuration Control, Risk Management, Verification & Validation )

Locations

• Boston, MA (Hanscom Air Force Base, Bedford, MA)
• Langley, VA
• Remote (For exceptional candidates. Note: Preference is given to local candidates, or candidates who will move locally)

Additional Information

This is a Federal civilian service position within the United States Air Force. We are hiring at the equivalent of a GS-12 up to GS-13 level for this position. This means you can expect a base salary of $74,441 to $115,079 multiplied by your locality rate, based on your experience. You can find your locality definition here and see the pay tables for the GS scale here. Our headquarters is located at Hanscom AFB, MA which would translate to a range from $98,240 to $151,870.

We also provide generous paid time off, health and retirement benefits, compressed work schedules, leave accrual—and so much more. There are also opportunities to diversify your employment experience in a variety of roles and levels after your initial appointment.

We understand that there is no such thing as a perfect candidate for any job, and we believe in empowering people to learn and grow throughout their careers. We encourage any applicant who is interested in making an impact in the Department of Defense to apply to this position regardless of background and qualifications. No military experience is required.

You MUST be a U.S. citizen to apply (does not include permanent residents), and you must be eligible to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance (see eligibility requirements here).

Federal Service also requires adherence to Selective Service registration for male applicants.