Principal Software Engineer

Leidos•Annapolis Junction, MD

20h

About The Position

Leidos has a new and exciting opportunity for a Principal Software Engineer in our Intelligence Sector's Cyber & Analytics Business Area (CABA) . Our talented team is at the forefront in Security Engineering, Computer Network Operations (CNO), Mission Software, Analytical Methods and Modeling, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and Cryptographic Key Management. At Leidos , we offer competitive benefits , including Paid Time Off, 11 paid Holidays, 401K with a 6% company match and immediate vesting, Flexible Schedules, Discounted Stock Purchase Plans, Technical Upskilling, Education and Training Support, Parental Paid Leave, and much more. Join us and make a difference in National Security! Program Summary This is a large, multi-year Leidos-led prime contract supporting the development, integration, deployment, and sustainment of large collection systems. The work performed on this program is mission-critical to the government and focused on solving complex technical challenges within emerging technologies. Team members operate with autonomy while contributing to a highly technical environment delivering impactful, mission-relevant solutions. Job Summary Leidos is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to design, implement, and enhance distributed application orchestration in a cloud-native environment. This role requires a senior engineer who contributes to architectural direction, leads development of scalable deployment solutions, and mentors team members while promoting best practices. The ideal candidate demonstrates ownership of system components, helps guide technical decisions and tradeoffs, contributes to shared tooling and standards, and applies a systems-level mindset across the platform.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or similar technical discipline with 20 or more years of related experience
Deep experience with Go or Python in cloud-native environments
Strong Kubernetes experience, including CRDs, Helm, GitOps, and multi-tenant application deployments
Experience with event-driven or agent-based systems (e.g., Kafka, controller patterns)
Familiarity with infrastructure automation tools such as Terraform, cloud-init, or Ansible
Experience working in complex environments balancing automation with operator oversight
Demonstrated ability to lead technical efforts and contribute to system-level design decisions
Clearance Requirement: Active TS/SCI with polygraph required

Responsibilities

Design scalable workflows for deploying and managing Kubernetes-native applications
Lead development of reusable Helm charts, GitOps templates, and deployment strategies
Build system-aware controllers or agents to automate application lifecycle tasks
Contribute to platform-wide architecture decisions, including deployment strategy, multi-cluster configuration, and observability
Mentor junior engineers and conduct code reviews to ensure reliability, clarity, and best practices
Collaborate with DevOps and platform teams to support secure and compliant deployments
Help shape internal standards, shared tooling, and technical direction through design guidance and tradeoff analysis