Lead Software Engineer
About the Team
STR’s Intelligence Division researches, develops, and transitions advanced analytics and machine-learning solutions for challenging national-security problems. Our team includes engineers and researchers with advanced backgrounds in engineering, computer science, mathematics, and data science who apply deep technical expertise and creativity to mission-critical challenges.
Our work spans data analysis, deep learning, and statistical methods across networking, communications, social media, text, time series, geospatial, and imagery data. We develop capabilities under constraints not typically encountered in commercial environments. U.S. Government analysts use our tools and technologies to extract, enrich, and act on intelligence information worldwide.
The Role
As a Lead Software Engineer, you will lead the technical execution of mission-relevant software systems that operationalize advanced analytics, machine learning, and data-processing capabilities. You will apply software and systems engineering expertise to develop scalable, secure, maintainable applications that operate in complex customer environments.
You will work with software engineers, systems engineers, researchers, and mission partners to translate customer needs into executable technical plans. You will own technical delivery for an assigned project or major subsystem, guiding architecture, implementation, integration, testing, demonstration, and transition.
What You Will Do:
Lead project execution: Lead software development from requirements definition through implementation, integration, test, demonstration, deployment, and sustainment
Translate mission needs into plans: Convert customer objectives into requirements, architectures, development plans, milestones, performance measures, and acceptance criteria
Lead the technical team: Lead and mentor software engineers and collaborate with systems engineers, researchers, DevSecOps personnel, and mission partners
Manage technical work: Decompose complex work into actionable tasks; manage dependencies, technical risks, interfaces, and progress toward program objectives
Own project architecture: Design and oversee architectures spanning services, APIs, data pipelines, databases, ML integrations, user interfaces, and deployment infrastructure
Drive integration and quality: Lead design reviews, code reviews, integration activities, testing, customer demonstrations, and release readiness; ensure reliability, security, maintainability, and performance
Support growth and transition: Contribute technical content to proposals, customer engagements, and transition planning while ensuring delivered capabilities are reusable and mission relevant
Who You Are:
Education and experience: PhD with 2+ years, MS with 6+ years, or BS with 8+ years of relevant experience in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, or a related technical discipline
Clearance eligibility: Ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance, for which U.S citizenship is needed by the U.S government
Technical delivery leadership: Experience leading software development efforts or major workstreams involving applications, services, distributed systems, data platforms, or related domains
Systems engineering: Experience translating customer needs into software requirements, designs, development plans, test plans, and integrated capabilities
Software development: Proficiency in one or more programming languages, such as Python, C++, Java, Go, or similar languages, with experience developing and maintaining production-quality software
Engineering practices: Experience with Git, code review, automated testing, CI/CD, containers, issue tracking, documentation, and secure software-development practices
Communication and collaboration: Ability to lead technical discussions, communicate risks and tradeoffs, and work effectively with customers and multidisciplinary teams
Even Better
Clearance: Active Secret, Top Secret, or TS/SCI security clearance
Architecture experience: Experience designing system or software architectures for distributed, data-intensive, real-time, cloud, on-premises, or edge systems
DevSecOps experience: Experience with CI/CD, infrastructure automation, container orchestration, cloud platforms, monitoring, logging, and security tooling
Large codebase experience: Experience developing software in large, multi-team code bases using collaborative engineering practices
Decentralized systems: Familiarity with message queues, stream processing, distributed computing, or microservices
Customer and capture support: Experience supporting technical proposals, customer demonstrations, technical briefings, or capture activities with DoW or IC customers
Modern development tools: Experience using LLM-enabled development tools, such as Cursor or Codex, in a secure and effective engineering workflow
Pay Information
Full-Time Salary Range: $180,000 - $230,000
The salary range listed is based on external market data. Offers are based on factors, such as but not limited to, the candidate’s experience, education, training, key skills/critical skills, security clearances, and prevailing market and business conditions.