Lead Software Engineer

STR • Arlington, VA

9d • $180,000 - $220,000 • Onsite

About The Position

STR’s Intelligence Division researches and develops advanced analytics and software solutions to solve challenging problems relevant to national security. Our team specializes in applying cutting-edge machine learning and computer vision in areas such as biometrics, target recognition and autonomous agents to solve national security and intelligence problems. We tackle complex technical challenges under stringent operational constraints by leveraging diverse skill sets from fields such as engineering, computer science, and applied machine learning. Our projects focus on a wide range of data modalities—including biometric data, video imagery, geospatial, and radio-frequency data—powered by the latest advances in deep learning and statistical techniques. Our solutions have real-world impact, allowing U.S. Government analysts and operators to extract and enrich intelligence information across the globe. As a Lead Software Engineer, you will use your software development expertise to operationalize advanced algorithms across a broad range of computer vision programs. You will integrate Python-based machine learning pipelines with complex systems and ensure they are resilient, maintainable, and user-focused. Collaborating closely with project leads and customers, you will translate stakeholder requirements into system features and components in a deployable AI/ML solutions stack, develop new user-facing features and implement robust backend architectures to support them, build, maintain, and test messaging systems, such as real-time data workflows and distributed processing pipelines, optimize software for data ingestion, transformation, and intelligent storage/retrieval pipelines, maintain and improve workflows for distributed systems, ensuring reliability and performance testing in operational environments, and participate in cross-program collaboration, adapting to diverse projects and tools. Our work involves projects of national significance, and the ability to work on-site in one of our Dayton, OH, Woburn, MA, or Arlington, VA locations (depending on candidate preference) will be required.

Requirements

• Strong proficiency in python and demonstrated ability to generate clean, high quality code both with and without coding tools
• Familiarity with software development best practices, including version control (Git), testing at scale (CI/CD), and agentic coding best practices
• BS Degree in a scientific field such as Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, or Physics with 8+ years of relevant experience. Equivalent experience will be considered.
• Ability to obtain a security clearance, for which U.S citizenship is needed by the U.S government

Nice To Haves

• Development experience with advanced messaging or real-time processing tools like RabbitMQ, Kafka, or ZeroMQ
• Experience with integration of computer vision algorithms and image processing tools (e.g., Pytorch, OpenCV, ffmpeg)
• Experienced in leading and directing research initiatives from inception to functional prototypes
• Experience working in a large cross-functional, distributed team
• Experience with US Government software accreditation processes
• Active security clearance

Responsibilities

• Translate stakeholder requirements into system features and components in a deployable AI/ML solutions stack
• Develop new user-facing features and implement robust backend architectures to support them.
• Build, maintain, and test messaging systems, such as real-time data workflows and distributed processing pipelines.
• Optimize software for data ingestion, transformation, and intelligent storage/retrieval pipelines.
• Maintain and improve workflows for distributed systems, ensuring reliability and performance testing in operational environments.
• Participate in cross-program collaboration, adapting to diverse projects and tools.

Benefits

• STR is committed to creating a collaborative learning environment that supports deep technical understanding and recognizes the contributions and achievements of all team members.

What This Job Offers

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