Senior Full-Stack Engineer (TypeScript)

About this role

You are building a greenfield federal case-management system end to end, shipped through a DoD software factory into an authorized environment. The whole application is new: there is no legacy codebase to preserve, the architecture is already written down, and a dozen decision records exist that you will disagree with in places. That argument is welcome and it is winnable.

The mission is not abstract. Some of the records the system holds are legally restricted disclosures that must not be discoverable — not through a search result count, not through a stale cache, not through a notification email. Designing a system where an entire class of record cannot leak its own existence is one of the more interesting engineering problems you will get handed.

Between delivery milestones you work on Emma, our agentic architecture platform. Small team, senior only, no layers between you and the decision.

What you will actually do

• Build the API and durable worker in Node.js 22 and TypeScript — Fastify, PostgreSQL, a transactional outbox, schema validation at every trust boundary derived into OpenAPI
• Build the React and TypeScript front end against that contract, with our designer
• Design PostgreSQL schemas where row-level security and effective-dated policy are first-class — hybrid relational/JSONB, versioned metadata, typed projections, full audit
• Implement a declarative rules engine over a restricted AST: deterministic evaluation, effective-dated policy packs. Explicitly not arbitrary scripts and not raw SQL
• Own vertical slices end to end — migration, API contract, worker job, UI, tests, container, gate evidence
• Keep the dependency surface deliberately small, because a blocked security scan is a blocked milestone
• Work AI tooling into the loop, and be honest about what it is actually buying us

What we need

• Deep TypeScript. Not "I have used it." You know why strict and noUncheckedIndexedAccess are load-bearing, and you know that types erase at runtime and what you do about that
• Real Node.js backend experience — services, async correctness, cancellation, backpressure
• Real PostgreSQL. Query plans, index design, transaction isolation, migration discipline. If row-level security and per-transaction session variables are familiar, say so early
• Front end you are not embarrassed by. React and TypeScript, accessible by default, built against a contract you helped define
• You have shipped something hard end to end and can walk through what broke and what you did about it
• You use AI coding tools seriously — with formed opinions about where they are excellent and where they quietly produce plausible garbage
• You can write. Design notes, decision records, memos. Here the argument is half the deliverable

Helps, does not gate

• Prior federal or DoD delivery; any software-factory experience
• Kubernetes; OIDC/SAML and PKI-based authentication; OpenTelemetry
• Healthcare, clinical, or case-management domains
• Agent frameworks, evals, retrieval systems
• A security background — especially if you think in terms of what an attacker or a subpoena can infer

Being straight with you about the constraints

• Fixed scope, fixed price, milestone-gated payment. The schedule is real and the milestones are money. Motivating if you like shipping, miserable if you do not
• Fully remote, DMV area preferred. Occasional in-person is real — credentialing requires in-person appointments
• Onboarding is slow and it is not our fault. Government access takes months. You will do real engineering from week one on synthetic data in our own environment while that grinds
• Synthetic data only. Fictional locations, fictional people. You will not touch a real record
• U.S. citizenship is required, and you must be able to obtain a government-issued credential for access to a controlled-unclassified environment and pass a favorable federal background investigation. This is not a preference — it follows directly from the credentialing and platform access the work requires. No active clearance is needed to apply.
• This is a 1099 contract engagement, not employment. You invoice hourly, you carry your own taxes and insurance, and there are no benefits. The rate reflects that rather than pretending otherwise. The initial engagement runs roughly six months to an initial capability milestone; continuation beyond it is intended and not yet funded