Senior Software Engineer

Leidos•Tucson, AZ

About The Position

Leidos is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Chinook Program, supporting an Intelligence Community customer and an application with national security impact. The engineer will remain hands-on while shaping software architecture, solving complex engineering challenges, influencing technical direction, mentoring engineers, and collaborating with architects, systems engineers, DevSecOps, test professionals, and mission stakeholders. The role includes responsibility for complex software development, technical design, integration, troubleshooting, and engineering leadership, including ownership of significant technical areas and providing technical direction to other engineers. The position supports the customer’s GEOINT mission and may be performed in Tucson, Arizona; Gaithersburg, Maryland; Alexandria or Chantilly, Virginia; Englewood, Colorado; or St. Louis, Missouri. An active Top Secret/SCI clearance and the ability to successfully pass a polygraph examination are required. U.S. citizenship is required by the contract. The role also serves as Scrum Master for an Agile software development team, facilitating Scrum ceremonies, helping manage sprint priorities, removing impediments, and promoting collaboration and continuous improvement. The engineer partners with Product Owners and team members to support timely delivery of high-quality software capabilities.

Requirements

U.S. citizenship, as required by contract.
Active Top Secret/SCI clearance and ability to successfully pass a polygraph examination.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field with 8–12 years of relevant experience, or a master’s degree with 6–10 years of relevant experience; a doctorate in a technical domain may also be held. Equivalent experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
Proficiency with web technologies including HTML, CSS, JSON, Ajax, and REST APIs.
Proficiency in an object-oriented programming language: Python, Java, or JavaScript.
Proficiency with front-end and back-end frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue.js, jQuery, Spring Boot, Django, Node.js, Flask, or Svelte.
Proficiency with AWS, Azure, or similar cloud platforms.
Proficiency with relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server.
Proficiency with Windows and Linux operating systems.
Proficiency with Git.
Strong experience with software architecture and application design.
Strong experience developing APIs, services, and/or distributed applications.
Strong database development and data-modeling experience.
Experience with modern DevSecOps and CI/CD practices.
Experience troubleshooting complex production and integration issues.
Experience serving as a Scrum Master or performing Scrum Master responsibilities within an Agile software development team.
Demonstrated understanding of Agile methodologies, Scrum ceremonies, sprint planning, backlog management, and iterative software delivery.
Experience using Agile project management tools such as Jira and Confluence to track sprint progress, manage work items, and support team collaboration.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting Intelligence Community mission systems.
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), or equivalent Agile certification.
Experience balancing hands-on software engineering responsibilities with Scrum Master duties on a cross-functional Agile team.
Experience using Agile metrics, including sprint velocity, burndown charts, and cycle time, to identify opportunities to improve team performance.
Experience with geospatial, intelligence, or other mission-specific data and workflows.
Experience with AWS and cloud-native architectures.
Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation.
Experience with GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, SonarQube, Nexus, Vault, or Keycloak.
Experience with PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, or similar technologies.
Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging technologies.
Experience with observability, monitoring, logging, and application performance management.

Responsibilities

Lead the design, development, integration, testing, deployment, and sustainment of a software application supporting the customer’s GEOINT mission.
Translate mission, systems, and technical requirements into scalable software solutions.
Lead technical design for application components, services, APIs, and integrations.
Develop and maintain high-quality production software.
Design and implement scalable backend services and modern web applications.
Evaluate architectural approaches and recommend solutions based on mission and technical requirements.
Develop and integrate RESTful APIs, microservices, and data services.
Design and optimize database schemas, queries, and data-access strategies.
Troubleshoot complex application, integration, performance, and production issues.
Lead root-cause analysis for significant technical problems.
Develop automated unit, integration, and system-level testing strategies.
Support CI/CD, DevSecOps, cloud, and containerized environments.
Identify and address technical debt, reliability issues, scalability limitations, and security concerns.
Serve as Scrum Master, facilitating sprint planning, daily standups, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
Partner with Product Owners and development team members to manage sprint priorities, remove impediments, and support timely delivery of high-quality software capabilities.
Promote Agile best practices, foster team collaboration, and drive continuous improvement in sprint execution, team efficiency, and software delivery.
Provide mentorship and guidance to junior engineers.
Collaborate with Test Engineering, DevSecOps, Systems Engineering, Security, and mission stakeholders.
Support production releases and operational troubleshooting.
Evaluate emerging technologies and determine their applicability to mission needs.
Contribute to technical documentation, engineering standards, and development roadmaps.