IT Application Development - Senior/Specialist (Olympia)

Our vision is to ensure that “Washington state’s children and youth grow up safe and healthy—thriving physically, emotionally and educationally, nurtured by family and community."

Job Title: IT Application Development - Senior Specialist - Project Position

Location : Olympia, WA, Thurston County (Flexible/Hybrid)

Closes: November th, 2026

Salary: $99,300.00 - $133,608.00 Annually

*Project position until at least 6/30/2028

The DCYF Application Development group designs, develops, configures, maintains and optimizes a broad range of robust, scalable applications, systems, software, interfaces and tools in support of the agency's mission and business objectives. This includes, but is not limited to, financial operations, human resources, licensing, fieldwork, case management, reporting, research, and supports for more than a dozen teams within the DCYF IT division.

Click here to learn more about DCYF .

The Opportunity:

This position has the important job of improving older technologies or creating better applications. The incumbent does this work in a highly regulated IT environment, and a key objective is compliance with industry’s best practices and all applicable Washington State and federal security standards, laws, and regulatory requirements. This work ensures that the SSPS user community, which includes internal programs of DCYF and external stakeholders such as OFM and Union 925, follow all necessary steps to issue payments to approximately 30,000 users and/or providers.

Some of what you will get to do:

• Designing, building, upgrading, maintaining, enhancing, testing new and existing applications. • Designs, builds and maintains integration packages. • Participates in iterative process improvements. • Uses software development methods and tools to integrate and support custom-off-the-shelf (COTS) software. • Recommends, designs, and develops technical solutions. • Embraces agile software development principles and values. • Provides technical leadership to application development teams. • Influence information strategy and provide direction. • Analyze current technologies used within the agency and determine ways to improve. • Document and monitor requirements needed to institute proposed updates. • Assess various technologies and platforms to determine the most suitable options for the solution, considering factors such as cost, performance, and compatibility. • Account for possible project challenges on constraints including, risks, time, resources and scope. • Work closely with project management teams to successfully monitor progress of initiatives. • Provide detailed specifications for proposed solutions.