Flight Software Development Lead Airborne Systems

The Airborne Systems Business Area in the Leidos Defense Sector currently has a special job opening for a capable Flight and Mission Software Development Lead to work onsite in our Huntsville AL office. This is an exciting and unusual opportunity to use your knowledge skills experience and insight to launch the next phase of your career at Leidos by leading a talented software team through the software development life cycle (SDLC) to produce solutions for the nations leading advanced defense technologies such as manned aircraft software tactical strike systems sensors computer vision uncrewed air systems (UAS) counter UAS mission planning command/control/communications (C3) platform autonomy network collaborative autonomy aerial refueling and flight management systems.

Leidos is dedicated to making the world a safer place. This starts with helping our customers in the Defense Industry achieve their critical missions. Our dedicated Defense Group employees are solving critical challenges across the globe. At Leidos we deliver innovative solutions through the efforts of our diverse and talented people who are dedicated to our customers success. We empower our teams contribute to our communities and operate sustainably. Everything we do is built on a commitment to do the right thing for our customers our people and our community. Our Mission Vision and Values guide the way we do offices across the United States engaging in the defense space cyber and commercial fields Leidos provides responsive cost-effective engineering scientific and IT solutions. Leidos is well known for our people-oriented culture positive work environment technical excellence and resilient business ethics.

Primary Responsibilities.

• This leadership position is dynamic requiring assertiveness strong technical competence flexibility impeccable prioritization abilities personal drive and energy and self-discipline. Working in this position your workday will span jobs such as leading a Software Integrated Product Team (IPT) working across technical functions on cohesive integrated solutions on complex integrated systems providing software program management working closely with software and computing hardware architects overseeing software systems engineers and lead software test engineers and serving as Agile Product Owner.
• Product development will span the technology stack from high-level user applications to mission software to low-level embedded solutions to the computing hardware. Hardware may span front end tablets and laptops rugged mission computers high-performance servers single-board computers (SBC) systems-on-chip (SoC) systems-on-module (SoM) custom printed circuit board assemblies (PCBA) and microcontrollers (MCU). Software capabilities span criticality levels and perform functions such as mission execution power and thermal monitoring sensors and instrumentation telemetry command and control communications networks mission planning and system infrastructures.
• This position will involve regular and direct contributions to proposals. This includes devising technical solutions determining the approach to execution schedule planning software size and cost estimation developing basis of estimates team sizing skills and staff planning computer hardware and software requirements elicitation and analysis and materiel planning.
• Direct communication with customers end users internal stakeholders and team members will be required on a frequent basis.
• In this position you will enjoy significant influence on positive outcomes and a strong sense of purpose working directly on fieldable systems that are key to the nations defense.

Basic Qualifications.

• A Bachelors Degree or higher degree in Software Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science Management Information Systems Computer Information Systems Electrical Engineering Aeronautical Engineering Aerospace Engineering Mathematics Physics or a related technical field is required.
• Candidate should have 8 years of relevant technical experience.
• Candidate should have 3 years or relevant experience leading teams and managing resources for software development.
• Excellent communication (verbal and written) and team leadership skills.
• Candidate must demonstrate their ability to work independently collaborate closely with team members discern efficient roles and tasks for their team members think critically act confidently and judiciously exercise impeccable judgement consistently make rational decisions and impart a productive sense of urgency to others.
• Experience in development of software products or simulations using C C Rust C# or Java is required. Candidate must articulate strong competency in development in at least one of these programming languages object-oriented design principles and troubleshooting.
• Experience working on one or more final products that went beyond prototypes demonstrations test beds or internal/lab use only. The candidates prior experience must exist on software products integrated systems or simulations that were released and fielded as either a product itself used operationally on an integrated system or released and used independently by individuals other than those who developed it.
• Proficient with efficient use of peer reviews and evaluations of software development plans specifications requirements management architectures designs source code unit tests verification plans and procedures.
• Familiar with practices associated with successful software supplier or subcontractor management and basic contract requirements methodology (e.g. SOWs SLAs and CDRLs).
• Fundamental and working knowledge of software configuration management code repositories and build system components such as DevOps CI/CD pipelines CMake GitLab Docker and virtualization tools (e.g. VMWare QEMU VirtualBox Hyper-V).
• Fundamental and working knowledge of general purpose operating systems (Linux UNIX and/or Windows) and practical knowledge of their respective development tools/IDEs scripts debuggers and administrative features.
• Understanding of the software development life cycle its phases life cycle models metrics or performance indicators and techniques for rapid development while ensuring high-quality solutions and on-time results.
• Able to multi-task and willing to work with teammates to contribute directly to industry events white papers and competitive proposals.
• Basic understanding of software engineering process and the appropriateness of its use application and proper methods of tailoring.
• Basic understanding of systems engineering principles and practices relevant to software.

Clearance Qualification.

• Candidate must be a U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain and maintain a Secret Security Clearance (interim and final).

Preferred Experience Skills or Abilities.

• Software Development: Experience with planning specification design development integration installation/deployment and maintenance of software for airborne systems mission planning systems missile/weapon platforms uncrewed or autonomous systems and/or ground control/support systems.
• User Experience Programming Languages: Basic knowledge in one or more programming languages used in applications and front end software such as /C# Java C Qt Swift/Objective-C and XML.
• Agile Development: Experience as Product Owner Scrum Master or Developer performing software product development using Agile development methodologies within one or more Agile tools such as Atlassian Jira Trello .
• Problem-Solving: Ability to comprehend changes characterize impact and assess risk to plans or existing solutions estimate their level of effort and resources describe (written and verbal) courses of action (COA) or decision analysis and facilitate team consensus.
• Collaboration: Work responsibly reliably and independently in a fast-paced open collaborative cross-functional cross-organizational environment without direct oversight.
• Transparency: Elicit accept and provide constructive informal feedback amongst other team members to uphold technical excellence and quality workmanship.

Other Qualifications

• Rapid Flight Systems Development. Experience with Agile/Scrum unmanned aircraft or robotics embedded development design and implementation of operational flight software digital communications real-time development and software safety.
• Qualification Testing. Knowledge of various development tools for software qualification testing requirements management build and release unit testing regression testing configuration management and issue tracking are beneficial.
• Mission Support: Devise new concepts for computing infrastructure and automation to support ground test facilities integration labs data collection and analysis autonomous logistics and operator training.
• Embedded Software: Understanding of fundamentals of critical or time-sensitive software for integrated systems such as real-time software hardware-in-the-loop simulation vehicles medical devices or IoT components.
• Specialized Areas: Experience with autonomous systems electrical and software interface design interface control documents or avionics is beneficial.

If youre looking for comfort keep scrolling. At Leidos we outthink outbuild and outpace the status quo because the mission demands it. Were not hiring followers. Were recruiting the ones who disrupt provoke and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. Were 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 onlyand 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.