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Legacy Modernization Policy Strategist
navapbc • Remote
No Relocation
Posted: February 23, 2026
Job Description
Position summary
Nava is at the forefront of reimagining how our government serves its people, and we’re looking for a Policy Strategist to help us increase our impact within government.
Nava is building new approaches to legacy system modernization that go beyond replacing old technology. We are investing in AI-enabled tools and delivery methods that help agencies understand existing systems faster, simplify unnecessary complexity, and modernize safely without rebuilding outdated policy and procedures into new platforms.
As a Policy Strategist on Nava’s Technical Solutions & Services team, you will play a central role in this work. Rather than focusing on a single program area, you’ll apply policy expertise across domains to help interdisciplinary teams modernize legacy systems quickly and responsibly.
This role sits at the intersection of policy, product, and technology. You will help translate statutes, regulations, and procedural guidance into clear, testable inputs for modern systems — and help teams distinguish between what is legally required, what reflects historical interpretation, and what can be simplified or reimagined. You will also contribute to early-stage product development, experimentation with AI tools, and external validation of Nava’s modernization approaches through pilots, demos, and stakeholder conversations.
This is not a traditional policy advisory role. It is a hands-on, forward-deployed role for someone who sees policy not just as a constraint, but as a lever for better outcomes.
What you'll do
Translate Policy into Executable System Logic
- Analyze statutes, regulations, policy manuals, and guidance governing public benefit programs
- Use AI-assisted tools to extract policy requirements and convert them into structured business rules, specifications, and decision logic
- Evaluate the accuracy and completeness of extracted rules, ensuring fidelity to legal requirements and policy intent
- Document traceability between system logic and underlying policy sources
Bridge Policy and Technical Implementation
- Partner closely with engineering and product teams to inform system architecture, calculation logic, and workflow design
- Help teams distinguish between what is legally required, what reflects historical interpretation, and what is a discretionary or legacy artifact
- Identify opportunities to simplify, streamline, or safely modernize policy-driven processes without compromising compliance
- Support testing and validation efforts by helping define representative scenarios, edge cases, and comparison criteria
Experiment with AI-Enabled Modernization Approaches
- Participate in rapid experimentation using AI tools to accelerate policy analysis, legacy system understanding, and rules extraction
- Help design human-in-the-loop workflows that balance speed with accuracy, transparency, and accountability
- Contribute to defining where AI can be reliably used in policy and modernization work — and where human judgment remains essential
Build Repeatable Frameworks and Reusable Assets
- Develop and refine reusable approaches for policy intake, rule extraction, documentation, and validation
- Help create shared taxonomies, templates, and playbooks that enable teams to apply policy insights consistently across projects
- Contribute to the evolution of Nava’s legacy modernization offerings by turning project learnings into scalable patterns
- Participate in external conversations with government stakeholders to test assumptions, surface risks, and gather feedback
Anchor Work in Outcomes
- Help teams define what success looks like for modernization efforts, including speed, accuracy, clarity, and reduction of unnecessary complexity
- Evaluate whether new approaches meaningfully improve outcomes for agencies, staff, and the people they serve
- Make clear recommendations — not just analyses — to support timely decision-making in ambiguous environments
Required skills
- 5+ years of experience in public policy, program implementation, policy analysis, or a related field — or a combination of relevant graduate-level education and experience
- Demonstrated experience interpreting and applying federal and/or state statutes, regulations, or policy guidance in real-world contexts.
- Ability to translate complex policy into clear, actionable recommendations for non-policy audiences.
- Strong ability to build and nurture relationships with both internal teams and external partners
- Self-directed and comfortable working independently with minimal supervision
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including technical and policy contexts
- Ability to document research processes, findings, and recommendations clearly, concisely, and in an organized manner
Desired skills
- Direct experience implementing government program policy and/or operational changes in the context of building technology solutions
- Experience or familiarity working in agile project management environments and applying human-centered design principles
- Experience working on government technology modernization, civic tech, or large-scale systems change
- Experience or interest in rules-as-code, business rules engines, or policy-to-technology translation
- Exposure to AI-assisted research, analysis, or documentation tools
- Experience contributing to pilots, demos, proposals, or early-stage product development
What we're looking for
- Skilled in analyzing public programs through qualitative and quantitative research to guide government implementation decisions and propose practical solutions
- An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative, and positive mindset
- Highly resourceful, reliable, and detail-oriented
- Comfortable with ambiguous, rapidly-evolving environments with many parallel threads
- Enjoys working closely with technologists and product leaders, and is energized by early-stage work where ideas are tested, refined, and validated through real use.
Additional Content
Position summary
Nava is at the forefront of reimagining how our government serves its people, and we’re looking for a Policy Strategist to help us increase our impact within government.
Nava is building new approaches to legacy system modernization that go beyond replacing old technology. We are investing in AI-enabled tools and delivery methods that help agencies understand existing systems faster, simplify unnecessary complexity, and modernize safely without rebuilding outdated policy and procedures into new platforms.
As a Policy Strategist on Nava’s Technical Solutions & Services team, you will play a central role in this work. Rather than focusing on a single program area, you’ll apply policy expertise across domains to help interdisciplinary teams modernize legacy systems quickly and responsibly.
This role sits at the intersection of policy, product, and technology. You will help translate statutes, regulations, and procedural guidance into clear, testable inputs for modern systems — and help teams distinguish between what is legally required, what reflects historical interpretation, and what can be simplified or reimagined. You will also contribute to early-stage product development, experimentation with AI tools, and external validation of Nava’s modernization approaches through pilots, demos, and stakeholder conversations.
This is not a traditional policy advisory role. It is a hands-on, forward-deployed role for someone who sees policy not just as a constraint, but as a lever for better outcomes.
What you'll do
Translate Policy into Executable System Logic
- Analyze statutes, regulations, policy manuals, and guidance governing public benefit programs
- Use AI-assisted tools to extract policy requirements and convert them into structured business rules, specifications, and decision logic
- Evaluate the accuracy and completeness of extracted rules, ensuring fidelity to legal requirements and policy intent
- Document traceability between system logic and underlying policy sources
Bridge Policy and Technical Implementation
- Partner closely with engineering and product teams to inform system architecture, calculation logic, and workflow design
- Help teams distinguish between what is legally required, what reflects historical interpretation, and what is a discretionary or legacy artifact
- Identify opportunities to simplify, streamline, or safely modernize policy-driven processes without compromising compliance
- Support testing and validation efforts by helping define representative scenarios, edge cases, and comparison criteria
Experiment with AI-Enabled Modernization Approaches
- Participate in rapid experimentation using AI tools to accelerate policy analysis, legacy system understanding, and rules extraction
- Help design human-in-the-loop workflows that balance speed with accuracy, transparency, and accountability
- Contribute to defining where AI can be reliably used in policy and modernization work — and where human judgment remains essential
Build Repeatable Frameworks and Reusable Assets
- Develop and refine reusable approaches for policy intake, rule extraction, documentation, and validation
- Help create shared taxonomies, templates, and playbooks that enable teams to apply policy insights consistently across projects
- Contribute to the evolution of Nava’s legacy modernization offerings by turning project learnings into scalable patterns
- Participate in external conversations with government stakeholders to test assumptions, surface risks, and gather feedback
Anchor Work in Outcomes
- Help teams define what success looks like for modernization efforts, including speed, accuracy, clarity, and reduction of unnecessary complexity
- Evaluate whether new approaches meaningfully improve outcomes for agencies, staff, and the people they serve
- Make clear recommendations — not just analyses — to support timely decision-making in ambiguous environments
Required skills
- 5+ years of experience in public policy, program implementation, policy analysis, or a related field — or a combination of relevant graduate-level education and experience
- Demonstrated experience interpreting and applying federal and/or state statutes, regulations, or policy guidance in real-world contexts.
- Ability to translate complex policy into clear, actionable recommendations for non-policy audiences.
- Strong ability to build and nurture relationships with both internal teams and external partners
- Self-directed and comfortable working independently with minimal supervision
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including technical and policy contexts
- Ability to document research processes, findings, and recommendations clearly, concisely, and in an organized manner
Desired skills
- Direct experience implementing government program policy and/or operational changes in the context of building technology solutions
- Experience or familiarity working in agile project management environments and applying human-centered design principles
- Experience working on government technology modernization, civic tech, or large-scale systems change
- Experience or interest in rules-as-code, business rules engines, or policy-to-technology translation
- Exposure to AI-assisted research, analysis, or documentation tools
- Experience contributing to pilots, demos, proposals, or early-stage product development
What we're looking for
- Skilled in analyzing public programs through qualitative and quantitative research to guide government implementation decisions and propose practical solutions
- An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative, and positive mindset
- Highly resourceful, reliable, and detail-oriented
- Comfortable with ambiguous, rapidly-evolving environments with many parallel threads
- Enjoys working closely with technologists and product leaders, and is energized by early-stage work where ideas are tested, refined, and validated through real use.