Principal Software Engineer

The MITRE Corporation•McLean, VA

4d•$173,200 - $259,800•Hybrid

About The Position

Why choose between doing meaningful work and having a fulfilling life? At MITRE, you can have both. That's because MITRE people are committed to tackling our nation's toughest challenges—and we're committed to the long-term well-being of our employees. MITRE is different from most technology companies. We are a not-for-profit corporation chartered to work for the public interest, with no commercial conflicts to influence what we do. The R&D centers we operate for the government create lasting impact in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, healthcare, aviation, defense, and enterprise transformation. We're making a difference every day—working for a safer, healthier, and more secure nation and world. Our workplace reflects our values. We offer competitive benefits, exceptional professional development opportunities for career growth, and a culture of innovation that embraces adaptability, collaboration, technical excellence, and people in partnership. If this sounds like the choice you want to make, then choose MITRE - and make a difference with us. Our team architects, implements, and operates Enterprise Capabilities (ECs) for MITRE’s Center for Integrated Transportation (CIT). The ECs are the enterprise data systems, software products, and enabling engineering platforms that support the CAASD FAA direct work program. We are a diverse, highly technical, and motivated team that embraces self-direction and empowerment toward our goal of delivering powerful and sustainable software for the enterprise. With experts across a wide variety of domains (software architecture, big data and cloud computing, and the aviation domain) we rely on cross-functional collaboration to promote organizational learning and quality. This Principal Software Engineer position is a senior individual-contributor role central to the technical strength of the department. Because our department owns and operates the ECs, the successful candidate will lead substantial engineering efforts across those capabilities while partnering with teams throughout CIT to apply them to their mission work. Pairing deep software and data engineering craft with aviation domain expertise, the Principal Software Engineer translates complex sponsor challenges into delivered, high-impact mission outcomes, raises the bar for engineering quality, and helps the team responsibly adopt emerging practices such as agentic AI across the software development lifecycle.

Requirements

Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree (Computer Science, Data Science, or other physical science/engineering fields); or 3 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with relevant experience who can immediately contribute at this job step; or an equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
Proficiency in high-level programming languages such as Java, Python, Go, and Typescript.
Experience and/or proficiency in software engineering, big data analytics, cloud computing, and continuous integration/continuous delivery technologies (e.g., AWS, GitHub, Gradle, Spark, Kubernetes).
Experience delivering and supporting production software applications using Agile and DevOps methodologies and tools.
Demonstrated aviation domain expertise (data, models, and/or operations) and a track record of delivering impactful mission outcomes against complex sponsor challenges.
Strong verbal and written communication skills.
Creative problem solver able to operate effectively amid ambiguity.
Ability to collaborate effectively with teammates, technical partners, and stakeholders.
Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a FAA Suitability. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for FAA Suitability.
This position requires a minimum of 50% hybrid on-site.

Nice To Haves

Active FAA Suitability.
Broad exposure across multiple aviation domains, such as airspace and air traffic management, flight operations, aeronautical and geospatial data, or modeling and simulation.
Hands-on experience applying agentic AI tooling to the software development lifecycle (AI-assisted coding, review, testing, or agent-based workflows) with sound judgment about quality and security.
Strong understanding and expertise in one or more of CIT's enterprise capabilities (e.g., Transportation Data Platform, Collaborative Research Environment, Fast & Real-time Simulation capabilities).
Understanding of aviation concepts and FAA data sets/systems that are central to many CIT work areas.
Experience designing and operating distributed data systems and cloud platforms.
Experience with geospatial or scientific computation supporting analytical or modeling workloads.

Responsibilities

Lead substantial engineering efforts across the CIT Enterprise Capabilities (ECs) that the department owns and operates to direct their design, development, evolution, and sustainable operation.
Partner with teams across CIT to apply ECs to their mission work, helping them adopt, extend, and get maximum value from enterprise capabilities to accelerate their outcomes.
Apply aviation domain expertise (data, models, and operational context) to shape technical approaches, validate correctness against real-world aviation criteria, and ensure delivered capabilities meet genuine sponsor needs and mission outcomes.
Serve as a technical subject-matter expert, reviewing work products and artifacts as part of an enterprise approach to continuous quality improvement and alignment to CIT's mission.
Partner with P260 management and technical leadership to shape and execute CIT's EC strategy to meet the evolving needs of the work program.
Provide technical mentorship and guidance to engineers on software craft, aviation domain concepts, and effective, responsible use of AI-assisted development tooling.