Flight Software Development Lead

Leidos • Huntsville, AL

6d • $131,300 - $237,350 • Onsite

About The Position

The Huntsville Defense Sector Engineering Matrix in the Leidos Defense Sector is seeking a Flight and Mission Software Development Lead for their Huntsville, AL office. This role involves leading a software team through the software development life cycle (SDLC) to create solutions for advanced defense technologies. Leidos is committed to making the world safer by supporting critical missions in the Defense Industry. The company focuses on delivering innovative solutions through its diverse and talented workforce, emphasizing customer success, team empowerment, community contribution, and sustainability. Leidos operates across defense, space, cyber, and commercial fields, providing engineering, scientific, and IT solutions. The company is known for its people-oriented culture, positive work environment, technical excellence, and strong business ethics.

Requirements

• A Bachelor's Degree or higher 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.
• 12+ years of relevant technical experience.
• 3+ years of relevant experience leading teams and managing resources for software development.
• Excellent communication (verbal and written) and team leadership skills.
• Ability to work independently, collaborate closely with team members, discern efficient roles and tasks, think critically, act confidently and judiciously, exercise impeccable judgment, consistently make rational decisions, and impart a productive sense of urgency.
• Experience in development of software products or simulations using C, C++, Rust, C#, or Java.
• Strong competency 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, and were released and fielded.
• 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 DevSecOps, 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.
• Ability to multi-task and willingness 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.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain and maintain a Secret Security Clearance (interim and final).

Nice To Haves

• 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.
• Basic knowledge in one or more programming languages used in applications and front-end software, such as Python, .NET/C#, Java, C++, Qt, Swift/Objective-C, and XML.
• Experience with SAFe 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, Monday.com.
• Experience using and influencing the adoption of tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex or other coding agents to improve efficiency and productivity.
• 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.
• 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.
• Knowledge of various development tools for software qualification testing, requirements management, build and release, unit testing, regression testing, configuration management, and issue tracking.
• 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.
• Experience with autonomous systems, electrical and software interface design, interface control documents, or avionics.

Responsibilities

• Leading a Software Integrated Product Team (IPT).
• Working across technical functions to develop cohesive integrated solutions on complex integrated systems.
• Providing software program management.
• Collaborating with software and computing hardware architects.
• Overseeing software systems engineers and lead software test engineers.
• Serving as Agile Product Owner.
• Developing solutions across the technology stack from user applications to embedded solutions and computing hardware.
• Contributing directly to proposals, including devising technical solutions, execution approach, schedule planning, software size and cost estimation, developing basis of estimates, team sizing, skills and staff planning, requirements elicitation and analysis, and materiel planning.
• Communicating directly with customers, end users, internal stakeholders, and team members.
• Influencing positive outcomes and contributing to fieldable systems for national defense.
• Devising new concepts for computing infrastructure and automation to support ground test facilities, integration labs, data collection and analysis, autonomous logistics, and operator training.
• Working responsibly, reliably, and independently in a fast-paced, open, collaborative cross-functional cross-organizational environment without direct oversight.
• Eliciting, accepting, and providing constructive informal feedback amongst other team members to uphold technical excellence and quality workmanship.

Benefits

• Leidos is dedicated to making the world a safer place.
• Leidos delivers innovative solutions through the efforts of our diverse and talented people.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 nation’s defense.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior