Lead Software Engineer

About the role

MITRE is a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization that works in the public interest. We lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies, collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high‑impact solutions that advance the nation’s health, security, and prosperity. The Lead Software Engineer will design, build, secure, and operate mission‑focused software systems and data platforms, emphasizing Python development, AWS cloud‑native and distributed architectures, DevSecOps automation, and data engineering/ETL.

Responsibilities

• Deliver modern software capabilities, improving architecture, platforms, and developer workflows with strong engineering practices (secure coding, reviews, testing, maintainable design).
• Partner with UX, Architecture, Data, Security, and Operations to define technical strategy and influence roadmaps with a customer‑centric mindset.
• Champion architectural excellence (cloud‑native, event‑driven, microservices where appropriate) across AWS/Azure, balancing long‑term vision with pragmatic execution.
• Design and integrate backend services and RESTful APIs, ensuring reliable data flows for mission workflows and downstream consumers.
• Build and operate data pipelines (ETL/ELT) for ingestion, transformation, validation, and publishing to analytics and operational APIs, including Airflow orchestration as needed.
• Develop and optimize data models, SQL, and database access patterns (PostgreSQL/MongoDB), including migrations and data‑quality strategies.
• Implement containerized deployments with Docker/Kubernetes, including configuration, deployment patterns, and troubleshooting.
• Engineer DevSecOps/CI/CD pipelines with security and quality gates and repeatable release processes.
• Provision and manage Linux environments using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/Ansible) for reproducible dev/test/prod deployments.
• Communicate via high‑quality design docs/RFCs and runbooks; lead architecture reviews, incident response, post‑incident learning, and compliance/observability integration (e.g., Splunk).
• Mentor engineers and raise standards through reviews and design sessions.

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years with a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years of experience (or equivalent combination).
• Active Secret U.S. Government‑issued Security Clearance; eligibility to obtain and maintain a Top Secret clearance; U.S. citizenship required.
• Strong Python development experience with modern software engineering practices.
• Experience building distributed systems in AWS or multi‑cloud environments.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience implementing DevSecOps and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience designing and integrating RESTful APIs and data pipelines.
• Familiarity with databases such as PostgreSQL or MongoDB.
• Experience with Linux environments and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible).
• Experience with modern web technologies (React, JavaScript, HTML/CSS).
• Ability to work in Agile development environments with strong documentation practices.
• Minimum of 3 days per week on‑site work.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a technical discipline (Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, etc.).
• Experience delivering software in compliance‑aligned environments and hardening systems to NIST 800‑171 and/or NIST 800‑53 standards.
• Experience building and operating AWS data platforms (e.g., Glue, EMR) and implementing automated data quality validation and monitoring.
• Experience with workflow orchestration and streaming/event platforms such as Airflow and/or Kafka.
• Advanced cloud automation and Infrastructure as Code expertise (reusable Terraform modules, AWS CDK patterns, environment promotion strategies).
• Experience with observability platforms such as Splunk, including onboarding data sources, parsing, dashboards, and alerting.
• Experience supporting mission analysis, test and evaluation, operational systems, and integration with external mission partners or vendors.
• Experience with simulation environments such as AFSIM.
• Experience administering or operating production systems (applications, databases, networks), including incident response and reliability improvements.
• Experience using agentic software development tools and technologies (e.g., Codex/ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf, or similar).

Pay

Salary range: $156,800 – $196,000 – $235,200 annually (midpoint indicated).

Schedule

On‑site work required, with a minimum of three days per week at the designated location.