Lead Software Engineer

• Lead as a technologist across varied client projects and technologies
• Make immediate project contributions and rapidly build client trust
• Balance technology choices pragmatically while delivering high-quality work within deadlines
• Lead architecture and software design discussions
• Collaborate on systems spanning the full ML lifecycle from data ingestion and preprocessing through model deployment, integration, and performance monitoring
• Generate technical and non-technical solutions with team members and clients
• Lead or initiate formal feedback conversations through retrospectives
• Document outcomes and drive action items forward
• Model 8th Light's Values and contribute to team and company culture
• Ensure a healthy, prioritized, and estimated team backlog
• Manage high-level project roadmaps for large engagements
• Maintain relationships with client technical leaders
• Conduct regular client status and risk-review syncs and present potential solutions
• Identify, mitigate, and resolve blockers to team progress
• Mentor, lead or design internal/client workshops, represent 8th Light in the tech community, and support hiring processes

Requirements

• Typically 7+ years of long-term, repeated success across a variety of projects
• Successfully led high-stakes consulting engagements from discovery to production
• Production-quality coding experience with languages and frameworks including Java, C#/.NET, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Go, Ruby, Scala, R, and SQL
• Experience leveraging AI-assistive development tools for scaffolding, refactoring, debugging, test generation, and documentation
• Experience building or integrating AI/ML-powered features
• Experience with automated testing
• Experience debugging and refactoring pre-existing code
• Experience collaborating using Git, MacOS/Linux, and CI/CD
• Experience addressing scalability, security, reliability, and performance concerns
• Experience bringing together people from different functions and perspectives
• Ability to make recommendations and set direction amid ambiguity
• Ability to mentor and share knowledge
• Ability to give and receive feedback effectively
• Empathic communication with stakeholders and colleagues
• Ability to balance technical considerations with product and user needs
• Strongly preferred: platform engineering, data engineering including Databricks, production agentic systems including RAG pipelines, vector search and frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, AutoGen, and n8n, DevSecOps/DevOps, MLOps, and Infrastructure as Code

Core Competencies

Demonstrates extensive experience in leading high-stakes consulting engagements, with a strong focus on software architecture, AI/ML integration, and production-quality coding across multiple programming languages. Capable of mentoring teams, managing project roadmaps, and fostering effective communication with stakeholders.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Production-Quality Coding Experience
• AI/ML Integration
• Automated TestingMentoring and Knowledge Sharing
• Platform Engineering

Hard Skills

• Java
• C#/.NET
• Python
• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• React
• Go
• Ruby
• Scala
• SQL

Soft Skills

• Empathic Communication
• Feedback Effectiveness
• Collaboration
• Problem Solving
• Team Leadership

Industry Keywords

• DevSecOps
• DevOps
• MLOps
• Infrastructure as Code
• Scalability
• Security
• Reliability
• Performance Monitoring

Tools & Technologies

• Git
• MacOS
• Linux
• CI/CD
• Databricks
• RAG Pipelines
• LangChain
• LlamaIndex
• CrewAI
• N8n