Senior Moodle Engineer (Moodle SME)

About the position

Kosma modernizes a Moodle Learning Management System for a U.S. federal agency. You are the deepest Moodle practitioner on the team. You own the product side of the work: the plugin estate, the upgrade decisions, the code fixes those decisions require, the configuration, and the reporting build.

A separate platform engineer owns the Linux, cloud, identity, and security layers below you. A Delivery Lead manages governance and the customer relationship. You are the person who knows Moodle.

What you will do

• Inventory and rationalize a plugin estate of several hundred plugins — retain, replace, repair, or retire, with reason and risk recorded.
• Own the upgrade risk: compatibility triage, sandbox validation, rollback plans, phased deployment.
• Write targeted fixes to plugin and integration code where repair is the right answer; validate each fix through the upgrade.
• Own configuration end to end — cohorts, enrollment, roles, course formats, completion, gradebook, SCORM/xAPI. You decide when package behavior, configuration, and reporting disagree.
• Define the data migration; reconcile users, course history, SCORM data, enrollments, certificates, and historical reporting.
• Build role-based dashboards and scheduled reports with the stakeholder groups.
• Document the plugin strategy, configuration baseline, and migration for Government review — and hand operational ownership to the platform engineer before your term ends.

Minimum qualifications

• 5+ years of production Moodle administration at scale, including at least one major-version upgrade you worked through yourself.
• Deep configuration skill: cohorts, roles, capabilities, enrollment, course formats, completion, gradebook.
• Enough PHP to find the fault and write a targeted fix to a plugin or integration — you repair what the upgrade breaks, not build features.
• Experience rationalizing or repairing a large plugin estate.
• Working SCORM and xAPI knowledge, and enough SQL to query the Moodle schema directly.
• Reporting and dashboard builds, with measures defined alongside the people who use them.
• U.S. citizenship (required by the Government for this contract), eligibility for a favorable Public Trust determination, completion of agency security training and compliance with the agency Rules of Behavior, and reliable availability during core U.S. business hours.

Preferred qualifications

• Federal or public-sector Moodle work.
• Experience presenting technical recommendations to a non-technical customer.
• Moodle community work, plugin maintenance, or a Moodle certification.
• Experience handing a platform over to an operations team.

Term, schedule, and location

• Term position of 8 months — from the start of contract performance to month 8 of a 12-month base period.
• Core hours are 10:00 to 15:00 Eastern; you set the rest of your schedule.
• Occasional coordination in the Washington, DC area and at a second agency office in the southeastern United States; travel is infrequent, reimbursed at federal per diem rates.

What this job is really like

A plugin estate of this size grows over many years. Part of this job is to tell the customer which plugins must not survive the upgrade — and defend that answer.

Kosma does not hire you to build features or run the Linux and cloud layers. Kosma hires you because you know Moodle better than anyone else on the team. The upgrade decisions are yours. So are the fixes those decisions need.

Conditions of employment

This position depends on a contract award. Kosma has not submitted the quotation yet. You receive an offer only if all six of these conditions occur:

1. The Government awards the contract to Kosma Technology LLC.
2. You are a U.S. citizen.
3. You receive a favorable Government suitability determination at the Public Trust level.
4. You complete a satisfactory background check.
5. You pass Kosma's hands-on technical evaluation.
6. You show your identity and authorization to work in the United States (Form I-9).

The evaluation: 2 to 3 hours, hands-on, scored against a written rubric in a Kosma-built Moodle environment that matches the target stack — after award notification, before your start date. No one works on this contract without passing one. If Kosma names you in the quotation, you also have a short technical conversation before submission.

Anticipated start: on or about 1 October 2026. The actual date depends on the award date and the Government suitability process. We control neither.

Pay & benefits

Base pay is $90,000 to $120,000 each year, paid as W-2 wages — approximately $60,000 to $80,000 for the 8-month term. A $500/month health insurance stipend, paid as taxable wages, adds $4,000; total cash for the term is approximately $64,000 to $84,000. You select and buy your own coverage; Kosma does not administer a health plan.

• Paid time off: 15 days per year, prorated to 10 days for this term. Usable as sick leave.
• Paid federal holidays: the 11 federal holidays that fall inside your term.

Kosma does not sponsor group health insurance or a retirement plan. This position has no bonus, commission, or equity.

About Kosma

Kosma Technology LLC is a founder-led Veteran-Owned Small Business in Poolesville, Maryland, delivering systems engineering for U.S. federal missions. We are building our first delivery team — you will be among the first hires, and we hire senior practitioners only.

Equal employment opportunity

Kosma Technology LLC is a veteran-friendly, equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, ancestry, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Equal Opportunity Employer / Veteran / Disabled.

Reasonable accommodation. If you need an accommodation to apply or to take part in the hiring process, write to resume@kosmatechnology.com.