Associate Software Engineer

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory•Laurel, MD

About The Position

We are looking for an Associate Software Engineer to help design, develop, and maintain critical software that supports National Security Space operations in a TS/SCI environment. You will work on scalable, secure, and observable systems for space‑domain applications such as command‑and‑control, data processing, mission planning, and multi‑domain integration tools. This is an excellent opportunity to grow your engineering skills while contributing to some of the toughest problems faced by our sponsors. The role emphasizes DevSecOps practices, cloud‑native architectures, and secure development/deployment in classified environments. You will work on distributed systems where reliability, security, performance, and auditability are essential, and you will receive mentorship from senior engineers throughout the process.

Requirements

Hold a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, a related field, or equivalent practical experience (internships, open‑source contributions, capstone projects).
Have 2+ years of full software engineering experience, including software design methodology, requirements development, configuration management, trade studies, and product defect tracking
Basic proficiency in at least one modern language/stack (C++, Java, or Python). Academic projects, internships, or personal code are acceptable.
Foundational Docker knowledge (building and running containers) and exposure to Kubernetes concepts (pods, Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Helm charts).
Experience (or coursework) creating simple CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Jenkins) that run builds, tests, and basic security scans.
Understanding of REST APIs, OpenAPI/Swagger documentation basics, and JSON data exchange (Protobuf a plus).
Familiarity with testing practices – writing unit tests and basic integration tests.
Comfortable using Git (feature branches, pull requests, and code reviews).
Possess interpersonal skills and are an effective communicator.
Have the ability to collaborate effectively in a team environment.
Are able to obtain a Top-Secret level security clearance. If selected, you will be subject to a government security clearance investigation and must meet the requirements for access to classified information. Eligibility requirements include U.S. citizenship.

Nice To Haves

Possess a Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
Have experience with DevOps Engineering or Process Automation
Have experience with cloud technologies such as Amazon Web Services, Azure, Google Cloud.
Knowledge of logging frameworks (Log4j/SLF4J), ELK stack, Prometheus, Grafana.
Introductory experience with Kafka, RabbitMQ, or other async patterns.
Have experience with Unix, Linux, and network computing.
Are well-versed in using professional software development tools such as integrated development environments (IDE), version control, issue trackers, debuggers and continuous integration tools and willing to lead teams through integration processes
Interest or experience with space‑related software, real‑time systems, or large‑scale data processing.
Knowledge of cross‑domain solutions or high‑assurance system integration is a plus.

Responsibilities

Assist in designing and implementing backend services, APIs, and data pipelines for space‑operations software.
Help build and maintain containerized applications and contribute to CI/CD pipelines under guidance.
Participate in adding security controls throughout the development lifecycle (DevSecOps).
Support development of event‑driven or messaging‑based components (e.g., basic Kafka/RabbitMQ usage).
Follow compliance procedures for classified environments, including air‑gapped deployments and controlled updates.
Identify and solve issue, monitor, and improve system performance and observability in test and staging environments.
Participate in code reviews, learn from architecture discussions, and receive mentorship on standard methodologies.