Senior Software Engineer (Virginia)

Kestrel Intelligence•Crystal City, VA, VA

10d

About The Position

At Kestrel, the Senior Software Engineer will lead the design and development of data structures, data processing pipelines, APIs, components of an agentic AI architecture, and user interface components. The engineer will set technical direction, make key architecture decisions, and raise the engineering bar across the team while working at the bleeding edge of geospatial science. The role requires adaptability, engineering rigor, and a deep respect for the mission. The position focuses on building production-grade Python APIs and services for distributed, service-oriented systems; scalable geospatial and sensor data pipelines; cloud deployments and supporting infrastructure; and engineering practices that support secure, compliant, and future multi-cloud and government deployments. The engineer will advise on future AWS GovCloud and DoD IL deployments, mitigate risks, mentor colleagues, lead code reviews, and help shape the technical roadmap.

Requirements

7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping production systems.
Strong experience with API development and distributed or service-oriented systems.
Experience designing large-scale software and infrastructure architecture.
US citizenship.
Active Top Secret // Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS//SCI) clearance with a counterintelligence-scope polygraph (CSP) or full-scope polygraph (FSP).

Nice To Haves

Prior experience designing or operating multi-cloud environments.
Experience with geospatial data, agentic AI systems, or frontend development.
Location near Colorado Springs, CO, or Washington, DC, with work at customer sites in Crystal City, VA, and Herndon, VA.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain production-grade Python APIs and services supporting distributed, service-oriented systems.
Architect and implement scalable data processing pipelines for geospatial and sensor data.
Develop and integrate components of Kestrel’s agentic AI architecture.
Lead deployment of Python-based services to cloud environments and design supporting infrastructure using Terraform.
Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions.
Establish engineering and infrastructure best practices, including environment separation (dev, staging, prod), secure networking, IAM, secrets management, logging, monitoring, and alerting.
Apply AWS GovCloud and DoD IL experience to build compliance-ready systems and make architecture choices that support future government deployments.
Design software and deployment patterns for multi-cloud environments, including cloud-agnostic Terraform modules, minimal provider lock-in for core services, and future deployments across commercial cloud and GovCloud.
Plan and advise on future AWS GovCloud and DoD IL deployments, even when those environments are not yet live.
Identify and mitigate technical, infrastructure, and compliance risks early.
Mentor other engineers, lead code reviews, and help shape the team’s technical roadmap.