NWS Lead Software Engineer

General Dynamics Mission Systems, Inc•Pittsfield, MA

7d•$110,175 - $122,225•Hybrid

About The Position

As the NWS Lead Software Engineer for General Dynamics Mission Systems, you will provide technical leadership for a frontend or backend software team supporting a complex, distributed tactical system. You will work across software, systems, hardware, test, and configuration-management disciplines to mature the product, improve development practices, and deliver scalable capabilities. This role combines technical leadership with hands-on work in architecture, implementation, reviews, planning, and mentoring. The selected candidate will help guide the team’s transition toward memory-safe and type-safe technologies, including Go for new development and JavaScript for existing applications. The Backend Lead focus includes backend architecture, database and data-model development, middleware and DDS integration, embedded and firmware-adjacent development, containerization, virtualization, deployment architecture, technology migration, and build and release management. The Frontend Lead focus includes frontend architecture and development standards, feature planning, integration with backend services, Agile Product Owner responsibilities, stakeholder coordination, and knowledge-management and training plans. The position is primarily on-site with opportunities for hybrid work or flex as allowable. While on-site, the employee will be part of the GDMS Pittsfield, Massachusetts Engineering Team. U.S. citizenship is required, and a Department of Defense Secret security clearance must be obtainable within a reasonable time. The position offers an estimated salary range of USD $110,175 to $122,225 per year; actual pay may vary based on experience and other factors. The posting will remain open until the position is filled.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering or a related Science, Engineering, or Mathematics field, plus 5 or more years of job-related experience; alternatively, a master’s degree plus 3 or more years of job-related experience.
Department of Defense Secret security clearance must be obtainable within a reasonable time; selected applicants will undergo a U.S. Government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.
U.S. citizenship is required due to the nature of work performed within the facilities.

Nice To Haves

Agile experience.
Experience leading or serving as deputy/backup lead for delivery of a mature tactical, mission, or strategic software system.
Experience in software architecture, technical planning, feature decomposition, and system-level design.
Frontend and/or backend development experience in distributed, multi-component systems.
Experience with Go, Rust, JavaScript/TypeScript, C#, Java, C/C++, or other memory-safe/type-safe programming languages.
Experience with database design, data modeling, SQL, and backend-service development.
Knowledge of object-oriented software design and modern software-design principles.
Experience with Data Distribution Service (DDS), middleware integration, and RTI DDS.
Experience with embedded software development, FreeRTOS, TCP/IP, and firmware-adjacent interfaces.
Linux development or administration experience.
Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, containerization, virtualization, and deployment automation.
Experience with CI/CD, DevSecOps, automated testing, static analysis, production builds, and configuration management.
Experience with Git, GitLab, source-control workflows, and merge/review practices.
Experience with software requirements decomposition; preliminary and critical design; implementation and unit testing; and requirements-based testing.
Experience in factory, hardware, or integration-test environments.
Experience with Agile delivery, Product Owner responsibilities, or SAFe Agile Product Owner/Product Manager practices.
Strong technical judgment and the ability to guide engineers through complex or ambiguous technical decisions.
Ability to balance hands-on engineering work with team leadership, mentoring, planning, and stakeholder communication.
Experience improving engineering processes, workflows, code quality, and automation in an established product environment.
Ability to communicate technical risks, tradeoffs, estimates, and recommendations clearly to technical and program stakeholders.
Commitment to high-quality, maintainable, secure, and scalable software.
Ability to lead a developing team, clarify expectations, and foster a collaborative and accountable engineering culture.
Willingness to take reasonable, managed risks while maintaining disciplined engineering, testing, and configuration-management practices.

Responsibilities

Serve as the technical lead for a software team, providing technical direction, mentoring, code reviews, and implementation support.
Break down features into well-defined, testable tasks aligned with product and subsystem design boundaries.
Partner with the Product Owner, Scrum Master, program leadership, systems engineering, and SC&I to plan work, manage priorities, and align with coding and development standards.
Support Agile execution, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, technical estimation, retrospectives, and delivery tracking.
Develop, review, and maintain technical artifacts, including test plans, user manuals, administrator manuals, design documentation, and software-development documentation.
Support financial and program-planning activities, including COCOMO estimates, Basis of Estimate (BOE) inputs, and Software Bill of Materials (SW BOM) development.
Conduct and oversee code reviews, ensuring changes meet quality, security, maintainability, testability, and Definition-of-Done expectations.
Assess and improve team maturity, code maturity, codebase size and stabilization trends, development efficiency, and scalability across a distributed environment supporting 3,000+ endpoints.
Help mature CI/CD and DevSecOps capabilities, including automated unit testing, code-quality analysis, configuration management, and repeatable production builds.
Establish, maintain, or support test beds on SWFPAC.
Identify technical risks, dependencies, and architectural concerns early; communicate options, tradeoffs, and recommendations to leadership.
Mentor existing technical leadership and individual contributors, helping build sustainable team capability and knowledge transfer.
For the Backend Lead focus: support backend architecture, database design, and data-model development.
For the Backend Lead focus: support middleware and Data Distribution Service (DDS) integration, including evaluation of Rust compatibility with RTI DDS.
For the Backend Lead focus: support embedded software and firmware-adjacent development, including FreeRTOS and TCP/IP interfaces, as applicable.
For the Backend Lead focus: support containerization, virtualization, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment architecture.
For the Backend Lead focus: support migration and adoption of memory-safe/type-safe technologies, particularly Go and Rust where appropriate.
For the Backend Lead focus: support build and release management, including Git-based merge, build, and configuration-management workflows.
For the Frontend Lead focus: support frontend architecture, legacy application knowledge, software licensing awareness, and full-system/subsystem interface understanding.
For the Frontend Lead focus: decompose and plan features based on encapsulation of product functions and subsystem design.
For the Frontend Lead focus: support frontend development standards, component design, usability considerations, and integration with backend services.
For the Frontend Lead focus: perform Product Owner responsibilities for an Agile team, including backlog prioritization, acceptance criteria, stakeholder coordination, and workforce oversight.
For the Frontend Lead focus: support knowledge-management and training plans to help engineers develop lead-level capability and confirm understanding of assigned work.