Lead Software Engineer

STR • Arlington, VA

4d • $180,000 - $230,000

About The Position

STR’s Intelligence Division researches, develops, and transitions advanced analytics and machine-learning solutions for challenging national-security problems. Its engineers and researchers apply technical expertise across data analysis, deep learning, and statistical methods involving networking, communications, social media, text, time-series, geospatial, and imagery data. The division develops capabilities for mission-critical environments, and U.S. Government analysts use its tools to extract, enrich, and act on intelligence information worldwide.

As a Lead Software Engineer, you will lead technical execution of mission-relevant software systems that operationalize advanced analytics, machine learning, and data processing. You will develop scalable, secure, and maintainable applications for complex customer environments, translating customer needs into executable plans in collaboration with software and systems engineers, researchers, and mission partners. You will own technical delivery for an assigned project or major subsystem, covering architecture, implementation, integration, testing, demonstration, and transition.

STR is a technology company specializing in advanced research and development for defense, intelligence, and national security. It describes its work as challenging and its culture as collaborative and supportive of technical learning and recognition of team contributions. Positions require employees to obtain national security clearances and comply with export-control and other applicable laws. The listed full-time salary range is $180,000–$230,000; offers depend on factors including experience, education, training, skills, clearances, and market and business conditions.

Requirements

• PhD with at least 2 years, MS with at least 6 years, or BS with at least 8 years of relevant experience in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance; U.S. citizenship is needed by the U.S. Government for clearance eligibility.
• Experience leading software development efforts or major workstreams involving applications, services, distributed systems, data platforms, or related domains.
• Experience translating customer needs into software requirements, designs, development plans, test plans, and integrated capabilities.
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages, such as Python, C++, Java, Go, or similar, and experience developing and maintaining production-quality software.
• Experience with Git, code review, automated testing, CI/CD, containers, issue tracking, documentation, and secure software-development practices.
• Ability to lead technical discussions, communicate risks and tradeoffs, and work effectively with customers and multidisciplinary teams.

Nice To Haves

• Active Secret, Top Secret, or TS/SCI security clearance.
• Experience designing system or software architectures for distributed, data-intensive, real-time, cloud, on-premises, or edge systems.
• Experience with CI/CD, infrastructure automation, container orchestration, cloud platforms, monitoring, logging, and security tooling.
• Experience developing software in large, multi-team code bases using collaborative engineering practices.
• Familiarity with message queues, stream processing, distributed computing, or microservices.
• Experience supporting technical proposals, customer demonstrations, technical briefings, or capture activities with Department of War or Intelligence Community customers.
• Experience using LLM-enabled development tools, such as Cursor or Codex, in a secure and effective engineering workflow.

Responsibilities

• Lead software development from requirements definition through implementation, integration, testing, demonstration, deployment, and sustainment.
• Convert customer objectives into requirements, architectures, development plans, milestones, performance measures, and acceptance criteria.
• Lead and mentor software engineers and collaborate with systems engineers, researchers, DevSecOps personnel, and mission partners.
• Break complex work into actionable tasks; manage dependencies, technical risks, interfaces, and progress toward program objectives.
• Design and oversee architectures spanning services, APIs, data pipelines, databases, machine-learning integrations, user interfaces, and deployment infrastructure.
• Lead design reviews, code reviews, integration activities, testing, customer demonstrations, and release readiness; ensure reliability, security, maintainability, and performance.
• Contribute technical content to proposals, customer engagements, and transition planning, and ensure delivered capabilities are reusable and mission relevant.

What This Job Offers

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