Technical Architect - MyMassGov

This is a contract-based employment opportunity.

The Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS) is the lead enterprise technology organization for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Charged with driving the ongoing alignment of business and technology across the Commonwealth’s Executive Branch, EOTSS oversees and manages the enterprise technology, digital infrastructure and services, as well as the Commonwealth Security Operations Center and an enterprise Standard Operating Environment that includes an information security and risk management framework for over 125 state agencies and over 43,000 state employees. We directly serve our constituents by providing digital services and tools that enable taxpayers, drivers, businesses, visitors, families and other citizens to do business with the Commonwealth in a way that makes every interaction with government easier, faster, and more secure.

Our Mission : We provide technology leadership across the Commonwealth to enhance the quality of public service and foster positive community outcomes.

About Mass Digital :

The Massachusetts Digital Service (Mass Digital), within EOTSS, partners with organizations across state government to transform how residents, visitors, businesses and government agencies interact with the Commonwealth. Mass Digital help our partners use the best technology, design, and data to make every interaction with Massachusetts government simpler, faster, and more meaningful.

Mass Digital has established its track record of delivery through recent work with the Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We helped DFML launch the Commonwealth’s first digitally native service, Paid Family and Medical Leave and PaidLeave.mass.gov. During the pandemic, we supported the Department of Unemployment Assistance in expanding their capacity to process unemployment claims in multiple languages and designed content for rapidly evolving pandemic unemployment benefits. We also supported the Department of Public Health and Command Center in launching and operating the state’s vaccine preregistration system.

Now, we’re turning our attention to a vision of statewide digital experiences that are more accessible, simple, and secure. Our roadmap calls for transforming state digital properties and content so that they meet the diverse needs of the people we serve. We’ll achieve this through initiatives to create a single identity and profile for users of Commonwealth services, expand channels of communication, and improve people’s integrated experience across different state services. We will develop new products and services, establish standards, and build capacity within agencies. To make this vision a reality, we are expanding our engineering team to dedicate technical staff to each of these product initiatives. We are looking for a front end engineer to join a new design system team inside Mass Digital that is charged with building and providing accessible, re-usable, and high-quality front-end components and patterns.

About The Role :

Are you a proven technical leader who wants to work on a meaningful public-service software project? Are you an engineer with experience working on large, complex systems looking to step into a leadership role? Read on, this role may be for you.

As a Technical Architect you will provide technical leadership, support, and direction to the MyMassGov team inside of Mass Digital.

You will focus on :

• Technical leadership. You will define the direction for the product’s technology stack, and work alongside engineers to execute this technical vision and deliver a high-quality solution for the constituents of the Commonwealth. You will translate the complexity inherent in large-scale public sector applications into clear written guidance for engineers and support these engineers when they need help.
• Software engineering practice. You will define and implement software engineering processes and tooling that will empower technical staff and help make the project successful. You will define the Git workflow, coding standards, code review process, continuous integration / continuous deployment tooling, and anything else you believe will keep the technical teams working efficiently and delivering high-quality work.
• Product leadership. You will collaborate with engineers, a Mass Digital product owner, and our vendors’ technical leads to define and estimate work, plan implementation efforts, and help define and iterate on the product’s technical roadmap.
• Technology organization alignment. You will collaborate with the Mass Digital architecture and engineering team and EOTSS technical leadership to align your product’s technical direction with the Commonwealth’s standards. Our technical leaders will support you in solving problems that the Commonwealth has already tackled and look at you to advocate for the best technical solutions for your product where those standards might not be a fit.

Your First Month :

You will spend your first few weeks paired with one of Mass Digital’s senior technical leaders who will help you learn Mass Digital and EOTSS engineering practices and standards, support you through integrating with your product engineering team, and provide any other guidance you need to help you be successful.

This position is a full-time contract opportunity. The primary work location for this role will be at 1 Ashburton Place Boston, Massachusetts 02108 . The work schedule for this position is Monday through Friday, 9 : 00AM to 5 : 00PM EST . This position is expected to follow a hybrid model of reporting to work that combines in-office workdays and work from home days as needed. However, we are usually able to accommodate any reasonable requests regarding work location, such as fully remote work.

Duties and Responsibilities :

◦ Leading software engineering teams. This is a senior role, and other members of the team will look to you for guidance on advanced technical concepts and for mentorship to grow as engineers and team members.

◦ Working with large-scale web applications. The solutions you will oversee will be available to millions of Massachusetts constituents. Software projects at this scale present specific complexities and challenges, and we think you’ll be most successful if you have previously held a senior technical role on at least one large scale software project.

◦ Modern tools and programming languages. We would like you to have deep hands-on experience with a few of these things, familiarity with most, and willingness to be proactive and learn about these or other technologies in the Massachusetts Digital Service stack :

◦ Working on projects with external vendors. Many of our product teams are composed of both external vendors and internal team members. We will rely on you to advocate for Mass Digital with our vendors to ensure that your engineering team is delivering high-quality software. We will also rely on you to help build expertise internally on the solutions delivered by our vendors.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills & Abilities :