Software Engineer (SWE), Level 1

Bitwise • Fort Meade, MD

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Software Engineer (SWE) — Level 1 An active TS//SCI clearance with polygraph is required for this role 👋🏼 Hey! Bitwise is a leading provider of mission-focused intelligence solutions that advance national security for the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense. We're a small and growing company, so you can expect to hop in on the ground floor with us and be a consequential member of the team. You'll be more than a contract performer for us — you'll also be asked for ideas to improve our company and improve your career, and you'll contribute to our team culture. We value growth and community above almost all else, so we gather regularly for game nights, happy hours, tech talks, and plenty more. We think you'll like it here! Remember, Bitwise is not a cult. 🖖🏼 🎯 What We Look For Bitwise hires talented engineers who are driven by purpose and who value a culture of technical excellence, growth, and overall wellness. We deliver new and innovative intelligence solutions to our customers at the very forefront of our country's national security missions. And we do it every single day. Our work matters, and so will you. We ask that every new hire be able to: Contribute meaningful thought leadership — if not right away, over time Interact with our customers and earn their confidence in your abilities Be detailed, even if that means taking a little more time to get it right Contribute their ideas and ideals to improve all aspects of our company Allow us to invest in their education so we both grow together Know and live our core values every single day 💡 About this Role This is a hands-on software engineering role at the cutting edge of AI-driven systems — and if that excites you, keep reading. You'll be building and advancing a production-grade agentic platform designed to power intelligent, autonomous workflows in a complex operational environment. This isn't a research project or a proof of concept — this is real software that real analysts depend on, and your fingerprints will be all over it. You'll work directly with cyber analysts to understand how they operate and where automation can make the biggest difference. From there, you'll translate those insights into agentic capabilities — skills, prompts, subagents — that are adaptive, context-aware, and built to scale. You'll integrate diverse data sources and external APIs using MCP tools, and you'll design and maintain real-time analytics pipelines that keep pace with demanding mission workflows. If you want to shape how intelligent agents operate, learn, and deliver impact, this is the role for you. This position is located in Columbia, MD.

Requirements

• 3 years of software development experience with strong Python proficiency, or 7 years of experience in lieu of a B.S. in a technical discipline
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining production applications that serve hundreds to thousands of users
• Solid understanding of AI development concepts, including prompt engineering, context management, structured outputs, and tool/function calling
• Experience developing resilient, scalable stream processing applications using modern messaging and event-streaming platforms (e.g., Apache Kafka)
• Experience leveraging AI coding assistants for code generation, refactoring, debugging, and automation

Nice To Haves

• Experience with agentic workflows and multi-agent orchestration frameworks such as PydanticAI, LangGraph, or DeepAgents
• Background in cybersecurity or familiarity with security operations workflows
• Experience managing deployments in AWS Cloud with Kubernetes
• GitLab CI/CD automation
• Experience with retrieval systems, including RAG, vector databases, and semantic search
• Experience analyzing cybersecurity-related datasets such as network traffic and OS events
• Knowledge of end-to-end SIGINT collection and analysis systems
• Experience with production CNO capabilities and operations

Benefits

• Top salaries because we're top performers
• Pick your PTO — Everyone values time and money differently, so we give you the flexibility to choose between 3 and 5 weeks of PTO with a corresponding adjustment to your pay. Your choice, your balance.
• All 11 federal holidays, paid!
• Up to 2 snow days, paid!
• We'll quadruple (4x!) the first 6% you contribute to your 401(k), giving you up to a 24% company match. Contributing less than 6%? Unclaimed matches come right back to you as extra income, giving you a guaranteed 24% that goes to your retirement, to your paycheck, or both. C'mon now! 🚀
• 100% employer-paid medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurances. That's a lot. Already covered on health insurance? No problem — we'll trade you this benefit for a boost to your salary instead.
• $5,250 annual education assistance for training, certifications, tuition, and even student loan repayments.
• Spot bonuses for obtained certifications, customer recognition, and just about anything else that makes us go "Hot damn!". We hope to say that many times about you. 🔥

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees