Lead Principal Software Engineer

Fort Meade, MD - USA

Monthly Salary: Not Disclosed

Posted on: 7 hours ago

Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Position Overview

We are seeking a reliable and motivated Software Engineer (Level 2) to support a mission-critical program within the Intelligence Community at Fort Meade MD. This is an on-site position in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) environment requiring a TS/SCI clearance with an active Full Scope Polygraph prior to consideration - no exceptions.

The SWE Level 2 is a capable engineer who implements containerized application workflows and infrastructure automation using modern DevOps and cloud-native tooling in a classified environment. This role works closely with senior engineers backend frontend and infrastructure teams to integrate services develop deployment pipelines and support scalable Kubernetes-native application deployments. The ideal candidate is eager to learn from senior teammates open to working across full-stack and infrastructure boundaries and values automation documentation and code reusability.

Note: This is a future-funded position. Submittals are being collected in advance of expected program funding. Candidates must have an active TS/SCI with Full Scope Polygraph to be considered.

This is not a remote or hybrid position. All work is performed on-site within a SCIF at Fort Meade MD.

Key Responsibilities Deployment Pipeline and Helm Chart Development

Contribute to the design and development of deployment pipelines and Helm charts for containerized applications within classified Kubernetes environments

Implement and test logic to handle common application deployment patterns secrets management and ConfigMap lifecycle

Support internal efforts to standardize and document reusable application deployment templates aligned with program standards

Follow team engineering standards and participate actively in code reviews unit testing and documentation maintenance

Kubernetes and GitOps Workflows

Work with Kubernetes tooling - including Helm GitOps tools (ArgoCD Fleet) and Kubernetes manifests - to support scalable reliable deployments in classified enclaves

Collaborate with backend frontend and infrastructure teams to integrate microservices into the platform and ensure interoperability across deployment components

Implement GitOps workflows and contribute to CI/CD pipeline configuration and maintenance

Debug and troubleshoot issues in containerized environments; analyze logs events and metrics to identify and resolve deployment failures

Infrastructure Automation and Configuration

Implement and test infrastructure-as-code components using Docker Kubernetes manifests and basic IaC tooling

Understand and apply Linux system operations principles to support containerized application environments

Support configuration management activities including environment-specific config files secrets injection and environment parity across classified deployment tiers

Document infrastructure configurations and deployment procedures for team knowledge sharing and audit compliance

Collaboration and Continuous Improvement

Collaborate with senior engineers to implement architectural patterns and team standards across deployment pipelines and shared tooling

Participate in sprint ceremonies technical discussions and design reviews; contribute constructively to team decision-making

Learn from senior teammates and apply feedback promptly; demonstrate growth in technical capability over time

Contribute to identifying and automating repetitive manual operational tasks within the teams scope

Qualifications

Education: Bachelors degree in Computer Science Software Engineering Information Technology or a related technical field. Equivalent experience (4 additional years of direct software engineering experience in lieu of degree) may be considered.

Experience: 7 years of software engineering experience with demonstrated progression including meaningful hands-on experience with containerized application development and/or infrastructure automation.

Additional Required Qualifications:

Active TS/SCI clearance with Full Scope Polygraph - no exceptions; must be active prior to start

Comfortable coding in Go Python and/or TypeScript in a production or classified program context

Familiar with GitOps workflows and CI/CD tools such as ArgoCD or Fleet

Hands-on experience with Kubernetes manifests Helm chart usage and development and Docker container operations

Working knowledge of infrastructure-as-code concepts and Linux system operations fundamentals

Demonstrated ability to debug and troubleshoot applications and infrastructure in a containerized environment

Understands basic Kubernetes concepts: pods deployments services namespaces ConfigMaps Secrets and ingress

Eager to learn from senior teammates and open to working across the full stack and infrastructure boundaries

Values automation documentation and code reusability in daily engineering practice

Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to produce clear technical documentation

Desired Skills

Familiarity with Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) or operator patterns (kubebuilder or similar)

Experience with event-driven architectures: Kafka message queues or pub/sub systems

Prior exposure to Terraform or Ansible for infrastructure provisioning

Experience in a classified DoD or Intelligence Community environment

Familiarity with secrets management solutions such as HashiCorp Vault or Kubernetes-native sealed secrets

Prior experience with Rancher Government Solutions or OpenShift in air-gapped environments

DoD 8140/8570 IAT Level II compliance (Security CASP or equivalent)

Familiarity with observability tooling: Prometheus Grafana or logging aggregation (EFK/ELK)

Position Overview We are seeking a reliable and motivated Software Engineer (Level 2) to support a mission-critical program within the Intelligence Community at Fort Meade MD. This is an on-site position in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) environment requiring a TS/SCI clearanc...