Systems Software Engineer

PEMCCO•Washington, DC

2d•$68 - $116•Onsite

About The Position

PEMCCO is seeking an experienced Systems Software Engineer to develop, modernize, and integrate secure software systems supporting federal government programs. The role involves analyzing source code, tracing data flows and network communications, understanding database engine processing, and implementing software changes to meet evolving mission requirements. The engineer works across relational and graph databases, identity platforms, cloud environments, and supporting infrastructure, in collaboration with cybersecurity, infrastructure, data, and mission stakeholders. This is a highly technical role focused on systems programming, database engineering, software integration, cloud technologies, and secure application development. The engineer will troubleshoot complex behavior across multiple layers of a technology stack and work with unfamiliar codebases and protocols. Work includes developing secure applications and services; building concurrent and networked software; analyzing database engines, protocols, and packet formats; modernizing services; managing infrastructure as code; deploying cloud-hosted software; integrating identity services and OIDC; applying Zero Trust principles; and producing technical and operational documentation. The position is full-time and onsite. PEMCCO describes a collaborative, fast-paced team environment focused on software engineering, databases, cloud platforms, and infrastructure automation, with opportunities to work across systems programming, networking, data platforms, identity services, and cybersecurity.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, Information Systems, Mathematics, or a related field.
10 or more years of software engineering experience.
Active TS/SCI clearance and ability to obtain and maintain a CI Polygraph.
Experience supporting Intelligence Community or other federal government programs.
Strong software development experience using one or more modern programming languages such as C, C++, Rust, Go, Java, or Python.
Experience with systems programming concepts, including process management, concurrency, multithreading, inter-process communication, and memory management.
Experience developing or troubleshooting networked applications and client-server systems.
Experience with relational databases, SQL, and database design concepts.
Ability to analyze and modify complex codebases and troubleshoot problems across multiple system layers.
Experience with Agile software development methodologies.
Strong communication, collaboration, and technical documentation skills.
Security+ certification or higher.
Agile Developer or Certified Scrum Developer certification.
Must be eligible for and able to obtain a Counterintelligence (CI) Polygraph.

Nice To Haves

Experience with database internals or database-engine development.
Experience with PostgreSQL, Neo4j, Redis, Elasticsearch, or similar technologies.
Experience with cloud technologies such as AWS or AWS GovCloud.
Experience with Kubernetes, OpenShift, Terraform, or Ansible.
Experience implementing OIDC, SSO, identity management, or Zero Trust architectures.
Experience supporting classified or mission-critical environments.
Experience with protocol analysis, packet captures, serialization technologies, or low-level communications.
Experience with cryptographic services, PKI, HSMs, or PKCS #11 integrations.
Advanced degree in a related technical field.

Responsibilities

Develop, maintain, test, and deploy secure, scalable applications and services using languages such as C, C++, Rust, Go, Java, Python, or Node.js.
Apply systems programming principles, particularly in C, C++, and Rust, to develop high-performance, reliable software components.
Develop software supporting process creation, monitoring, control, and inter-process communication.
Build concurrent and multithreaded applications using synchronization, signal handling, memory management, and resource-control techniques.
Design, implement, and troubleshoot networked applications using sockets, client-server architectures, and applicable network protocols.
Analyze database engine source code, communication protocols, request and response formats, serialization methods, and packet layouts.
Trace requests through database engine code to identify processing logic, integration points, and operational impacts.
Develop relational data-storage solutions using SQL, including data modeling, query development, performance tuning, and access control.
Develop and integrate graph database solutions for relationship-based data modeling, analysis, and retrieval.
Work with relational databases, graph databases, object storage, and search/indexing technologies, including PostgreSQL, Redis, RxDB, Neo4j, Amazon S3, and Elasticsearch.
Refactor and modernize existing services, including transitioning functionality from Python to other implementation languages where appropriate.
Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code solutions to provision, configure, and manage environments through repeatable, version-controlled workflows.
Deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot cloud-hosted software and its compute, storage, networking, identity, and security dependencies.
Integrate applications with identity providers for authentication, authorization, federation, single sign-on, and identity-aware access control.
Implement OIDC integrations, including token validation, claims processing, client registration, redirect flows, session management, and secure API access.
Incorporate Zero Trust Architecture principles into software designs and implementations.
Collaborate with cybersecurity, infrastructure, data, and mission stakeholders to integrate security controls, cryptographic protections, logging, monitoring, and auditability throughout the software development lifecycle.
Produce and maintain software designs, interface specifications, deployment procedures, configuration baselines, security implementation details, and operational support materials.