Remote Release Train Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

Location: Remote must reside in CO, FL, IA, IL, KS, MO, NE, OH, or TN

Travel Expectations: Once yearly - company offsite
Salary: $100,000$140,000 annually, depending on experience
Reports to: CTO

**Applicants will receive a Culture Index survey by email after applying. Completion of the survey is a required step in our hiring process. **

About the Company

We are an established software company with a long history of serving county and city governments. Today, we are transforming a broad portfolio of Windows-based applications into a modern SaaS suite of integrated products.

Our engineering organization supports both established products and the development of our next-generation SaaS platform. As products transition to the new platform, an increasing share of our engineering investment will focus on modernization.

Role Overview

As a Software Engineer (Desktop .NET), you will play an important role in keeping established government software reliable, supportable, and evolving while the company builds its next generation of SaaS products.

This is a hands-on engineering role that combines product development, production problem-solving, and incremental modernization. You will work across Windows desktop and client/server applications built with C#, VB.NET, WinForms, .NET Framework, and modern .NET, along with SQL Server databases, ASP.NET/IIS portals, operational reports, integrations, and deployment workflows.

Success in this role means taking ownership of product changes from diagnosis through release, improving reliability and maintainability, and making thoughtful modernization investments that reduce risk and improve the customer experience.

You will work closely with domain experts and Customer Engineering on technical escalations and business requirements. Software Engineering owns product fixes, shared releases, and the long-term health of the codebase while Customer Engineering leads frontline customer support and implementation.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain, debug, and extend Windows applications built with C#, VB.NET, WinForms, .NET Framework, and modern .NET.
• Refactor or modernize established code when changes provide clear reliability, maintainability, or customer benefits.
• Improve shared functionality through well-scoped libraries and NuGet packages.
• Develop and tune SQL Server schemas, T-SQL queries, stored procedures, and data-conversion logic with a strong focus on correctness.
• Maintain ASP.NET/IIS web portals and the interfaces between portal, desktop, and database components.
• Build and troubleshoot operational reports, including SAP Crystal Reports, and structured import/export workflows using formats such as JSON and XML.
• Improve development and delivery practices through consistent Git/GitHub workflows, automated builds and testing, packaging, and repeatable releases.
• Strengthen production diagnostics through structured logging, error tracking, monitoring, and tools that help reproduce and resolve customer-reported issues.
• Investigate escalated defects, communicate findings clearly, estimate product work, and carry accepted fixes through release and production follow-up.
• Partner with domain experts and Customer Engineering to understand business rules and develop maintainable product solutions.
• Document product, build, and release knowledge so expertise can be shared effectively across the team.
• Use AI-assisted development tools thoughtfully while remaining accountable for code quality and customer impact.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with substantial .NET application ownership.
• Strong C# experience and practical experience maintaining VB.NET code.
• Experience with both modern .NET and .NET Framework, including Windows desktop development with WinForms or a comparable UI framework.
• Strong SQL Server and T-SQL skills, including stored procedures, query optimization, schema design, and production data troubleshooting.
• Experience with LINQ and Entity Framework or another .NET data-access approach.
• Experience maintaining ASP.NET applications hosted in IIS.
• Experience with reporting tools such as SAP Crystal Reports.
• Practical unit and integration testing experience in established codebases.
• Strong Git fundamentals, including branches, commits, merges, conflict resolution, pull requests, and the ability to diagnose repository state beyond GUI tooling.
• Experience with CI/CD in GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or a comparable system.
• Experience creating and maintaining NuGet packages.
• Working knowledge of structured logging, error tracking, monitoring, and production diagnosis.
• Experience working on a modern product team using agile processes.
• Practical experience with AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Codex, or comparable tools.
• Strong interpersonal skills and a tactful, empathetic communication style.

Preferred Qualifications

• PowerShell automation and experience working with JSON/XML integrations or flat-file imports.
• Experience designing or consuming REST APIs.
• Finance, payroll, property valuation, tax, records, utilities, or other local-government domain knowledge.
• Experience modernizing large desktop or client/server application portfolios.
• Experience in regulated or audit-focused environments, including SOC 2, GovRAMP, or FedRAMP readiness.

Why Join Us

• Make meaningful reliability and usability improvements to software that local governments depend on every day.
• Help modernize an established product portfolio through better source control, testing, diagnostics, releases, shared code, and selective framework upgrades.
• Work on consequential business problems involving payroll, finance, tax, records, reporting, and customer data.
• Help turn deep product and domain knowledge into shared engineering practices and systems that strengthen the team over time.
• Contribute to the evolution of established products while helping position the company for its SaaS future.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, with the company paying 75% of monthly premiums.
• 401(k) with company contributions.
• Vacation, sick leave, and paid holidays to support work-life balance.