Principal Software Engineer

Description

Leidos has an exciting opening for you as our next TS/SCI cleared Principal  Software Engineer supporting a long-term DOMEX Technology Platform (DTP) contract. You will work closely with Systems Engineers, Software Engineers, Architects, and Operations Engineering/Manager on a broad scope of activities extending across the development of systems to include middle-tier and backend engineering tasks.  Have impact as part of a mission focused, solutions oriented, and adaptive team that values innovation, collaboration, and professional development. While most work is conducted on-site at our client location in Bethesda, MD, we offer a flexible schedule and, occasionally, some tasks may be performed remotely. The percentage of remote work will vary based on client requirements/deliverables.

Seeking a seasoned Python engineer to design and lead the development of scalable, distributed microservices deployed in Kubernetes. You will architect solutions for data ingestion, real-time processing, and intelligent search using Kafka and Elasticsearch. As a senior team member, you’ll play a key role in technical leadership, mentoring engineers, and shaping the long-term evolution of our systems.

You will work closely with the team on the following key tasks

• Lead the design and architecture of backend systems and services.
• Drive initiatives across the engineering team related to scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Build robust, testable, and maintainable Python microservices
• Architect message flows with Kafka, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance
• Define data modeling, indexing, and query patterns for Elasticsearch to meet product requirements
• Guide service deployments, rollout strategies, and observability practices in Kubernetes
• Contribute to and review RFCs, design documents, and architecture reviews
• Develop and integrate Docker containers to be deployed to Kubernetes from development to production
• Monitor automated system integration tests to identify failed modules and components
• Manage individual project priorities, deliverables, and deadlines
• Provides specific input to the software components of system design to include hardware/software trade-offs, software reuse, use of COTS/GOTS in place of new development, and requirements analysis and synthesis from system level to individual software components
• Foster an environment of collaboration with the different team members in the goal of providing quality service and product to our customers
• Act as a mentor to mid-level and junior engineers, offering guidance on best practices and career growth

To be successful in this role you need these skills (required):

• Typically requires Bachelor’s Degree and 12-15 years of prior relevant experience or Masters with 10-13 years of prior relevant experience
• Must possess an Active Top Secret/SCI clearance and ability to obtain and maintain a Polygraph
• 7+ years of backend software engineering experience, including at least 5 years in Python
• Proven expertise building and maintaining microservices in production in Kubernetes
• Deep understanding of Elasticsearch internals: sharding, performance tuning, analyzers, query DSL
• Strong Kafka experience: event design, stream processing, performance tuning
• Solid grasp of distributed systems principles: fault tolerance, consensus, data consistency
• Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers
• Strong testing discipline with a focus on automation, coverage, and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience with DevOps practices and tools including Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tools and practices, especially Gitlab or Jenkins
• Hands-on development and/or scripting experience, especially Python and Bash in Linux environment
• Experience with AWS cloud-based architecture, services, and software development
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Enthusiastic with the ability to work well in a team and a self-starter who can work on their own

• Active Security+ certification and ability to obtain Privileged User Account (PUA) certification
• Elasticsearch certifications or other program stack related certifications
• Experience with system design at scale — dealing with 100k+ messages/sec, TB-scale indexes.
• Familiarity with schema registries and Kafka streaming patterns
• Familiarity with authentication and authorization products such as Keycloak
• Experience with security best practices for services: authN/Z, secrets management, data protection
• GraphQL familiarity and/or Apache NiFi experience
• Hardware on-prem and cloud-based deployments using Kubernetes
• Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code (i.e. CloudFormation, Terraform, Pulumi)
• Experience of a production/enterprise systems at scale
• Knowledge of distributed systems concepts (e.g., idempotency, eventual consistency)
• Proactive in identifying tech debt, systemic issues, and areas for team/process improvement

#NMECDTP-LEIDOS

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.