Radio Frequency Software Engineer Principal - 1660 with Security Clearance

About the role

Lead a team of Senior Software Engineers in support of real world cyber operations; assign work, conduct code reviews, enforce quality standards, and provide technical mentorship.

Establish and maintain disciplined software engineering practices: versioning, CI/CD pipelines, unit and integration testing, and documentation standards.

Design and evaluate database and storage architecture for the tactical system and research enclave environments.

Collaborate with the program technical lead to translate research findings and batch optimization algorithms into production pipeline components.

Evaluate and benchmark Python pipeline performance on tactical-box-spec hardware; identify bottlenecks and lead porting of mature components to Rust or C for edge deployment.

Manage and coordinate the tactical system VM environment and stream simulation infrastructure; ensure research VM is not disrupted by development activity.

Define and enforce stream interface contracts between the ingestion layer, database, and downstream consumers.

Evaluate emerging technologies (e.g., DuckDB/Parquet, Polars, message queues) against program requirements and recommend adoption decisions to the technical lead.

Maintain the program's GitLab repository structure, branching strategy, and release management.

Produce clear technical documentation including architecture decision records, interface specifications, and deployment guides.

Support technical reviews and provide written inputs for sponsor deliverables as directed by the program technical lead.

Expert-level career professional with broad and deep application of software engineering principles across the full development lifecycle. Exercises independent judgment in evaluating methods, techniques, and approaches; identifies and resolves complex technical problems with significant program impact. Provides technical leadership and direction to other engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of Senior Software Engineers in support of real world cyber operations; assign work, conduct code reviews, enforce quality standards, and provide technical mentorship.
• Establish and maintain disciplined software engineering practices: versioning, CI/CD pipelines, unit and integration testing, and documentation standards.
• Design and evaluate database and storage architecture for the tactical system and research enclave environments.
• Collaborate with the program technical lead to translate research findings and batch optimization algorithms into production pipeline components.
• Evaluate and benchmark Python pipeline performance on tactical-box-spec hardware; identify bottlenecks and lead porting of mature components to Rust or C for edge deployment.
• Manage and coordinate the tactical system VM environment and stream simulation infrastructure; ensure research VM is not disrupted by development activity.
• Define and enforce stream interface contracts between the ingestion layer, database, and downstream consumers.
• Evaluate emerging technologies (e.g., DuckDB/Parquet, Polars, message queues) against program requirements and recommend adoption decisions to the technical lead.
• Maintain the program's GitLab repository structure, branching strategy, and release management.
• Produce clear technical documentation including architecture decision records, interface specifications, and deployment guides.
• Support technical reviews and provide written inputs for sponsor deliverables as directed by the program technical lead.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience leading a software engineering team on a production data pipeline or streaming system; ability to set technical direction and mentor junior engineers.
• Expert-level Python development, including stream processing, multi-threaded/async architectures, and performance profiling.
• Proficiency in one or more compiled or systems languages (Rust, C, C++, or Go) for performance-critical components; experience porting Python to compiled targets.
• Hands-on experience designing and implementing relational database schemas and write-intensive data pipelines (MySQL, PostgreSQL, or equivalent).
• Experience parsing binary serialization formats such as FlatBuffers or Protocol Buffers in a production context.
• Demonstrated ability to benchmark and optimize pipeline throughput on resource-constrained hardware or cloud environment.
• Strong proficiency with Linux system administration, remote server management via SSH, and air-gapped development environments.
• Experience architecting multi-consumer data systems where a single write path must serve concurrent display, analytics, and batch processing readers.
• Proficient in disciplined software engineering practices: GitLab/Git, CI/CD pipeline design, test-driven development, and code review.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills; ability to produce architecture decision records and technical documentation for both engineering and leadership audiences.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's (or equivalent) with 10+ years of experience.

Skills

• Experience with TNS (Target Network System) sensor data formats and NDF ICD specifications.
• Familiarity with TDMA network protocols, time-division access architectures, and passive RF signal processing concepts.
• Experience deploying and operating software on tactical edge hardware co-located with a sensor system.
• Experience with lightweight stream or message queue architectures (ZeroMQ, RabbitMQ, or equivalent).
• Experience with Polars or DuckDB for high-performance analytical workloads and write-once/read-many storage patterns.
• Experience with LLM-assisted software development tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, JetBrains AI Assistant, or equivalent); demonstrated ability to use AI tools productively for code generation, refactoring, and test case development while maintaining engineering judgment and code quality standards.
• Familiarity with AI/ML model inference integration - ability to incorporate batch optimizer outputs into the production pipeline without requiring ML expertise.
• Experience with browser-based data visualization or reporting tools (React, D3, or equivalent) as a consumer of pipeline output.
• Experience with Jupyter Notebooks and research enclave environments; ability to bridge from research prototype to production code.
• Experience with FlatBuffers binary stream replay and simulation infrastructure for pipeline testing.
• Familiarity with Rust toolchain and ecosystem for systems-level development on Linux.

Benefits

Not specified.

Pay

$419,132 per year

Schedule

Not specified.