Technical Lead

Why do you need to choose between doing important work and having a fulfilling life? At Ardent, we have both. Ardent employees are committed to solving our customers’ most difficult problems—and we are committed to the well-being, personal goals, and professional development of our employees. We are “All In.” We put forth our strongest effort possible to get the mission accomplished and we do it together. We respect the skills and experience you bring to the Ardent team. And we provide a rewarding environment to help you succeed. 

We offer highly competitive benefits, professional development opportunities, and an exceptional culture that embraces flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth. A collective service mindset underpins our work, and a shared camaraderie to serve clients, colleagues, and our communities sets us apart. Our full commitment to being "All In" for our employees and our clients is not just our approach, it is our standard. If this sounds like the perfect fit for you, choose Ardent and make a difference with us. 

Ardent is seeking a Technical Lead to join our team. 

This is a hybrid/remote position located in the Washington, D.C. Metro area.  

The Technical Lead will drive innovative software development and data solutions in support of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This role offers an exciting opportunity to lead large-scale development initiatives that directly impact national security, focusing on data integration, analytics, and agile software delivery.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and participate in Government Agile Teams to develop, sustain, and enhance software following prescribed agile practices and sprint/release cadences.
• Recommend opportunities for dedicated architectural sprints to address technical challenges and improvements.
• Actively participate in architectural reviews and contribute to design decisions.
• Mentor technical staff to ensure expertise in agile methodologies and technical best practices.
• Serve as a backup Agile Team Lead when needed, supporting team coordination and sprint management.
• Analyze business and product requirements to design effective data analytics solutions.
• Provide technical leadership in the design, development, and implementation of large-scale software, ETL pipelines, data warehouses, and analytics platforms.
• Assist in defining architectural requirements for data warehousing, analytics, and ETL solutions.
• Develop strategic roadmaps aligning software development activities with mission outcomes.
• Lead an integrated team of subject matter experts and IT specialists to achieve project objectives.
• Serve as the primary technical resource for both development teams and customers, ensuring alignment with goals and expectations.
• Prioritize team tasks, assign responsibilities, and review the work of junior developers and engineers.
• Provide technical guidance on industry best practices, architectural standards, and coding approaches.
• Engage with customers to understand requirements, provide solutions, and address challenges.
• Work independently with minimal supervision while delivering high-quality results.

Requirements:

• Active or eligible for a Customs and Border Protection Background Investigation (CBP BI).
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (Master’s degree preferred).
• 10+ years of experience in an IT leadership role, managing technical teams and projects.
• Proven leadership in Agile Scrum environments, including backlog grooming, user story creation, sprint execution, and retrospectives.
• Proficiency with Atlassian Jira and Confluence (or comparable agile tracking tools).
• Hands-on experience with leading analytics platforms such as Tableau Enterprise Server and/or Power BI.
• Experience using Informatica PowerCenter or similar ETL tools.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and developing database or data warehouse solutions using Oracle.
• Strong programming/scripting experience with Python and familiarity with Jupyter Notebooks.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to clearly convey technical information to diverse audiences.

Due to the nature of the work we support, all candidates in consideration for this role must be U.S. Citizens willing to undergo the government issued background investigation process.

Ardent is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other basis protected by state, local, or federal law.