Senior Software Engineer
Leidos
About the role
Lead Technology Behind a Mission That Matters
Great software engineering is about more than writing code, it’s about solving difficult problems, making smart technical decisions, and building capabilities people can depend on. Leidos is seeking an accomplished Senior Software Engineer to join the Chinook Program supporting an Intelligence Community (IC) customer and an application with direct national security impact.
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll be a key technical leader, shaping software architecture, solving complex engineering challenges, and helping drive the evolution of critical application capabilities. You’ll remain hands-on while influencing technical direction, mentoring engineers, and collaborating with architects, systems engineers, DevSecOps, test professionals, and mission stakeholders.
The Senior Engineer is responsible for complex software development, technical design, integration, troubleshooting, and engineering leadership. You’ll take ownership of significant technical areas and provide technical direction to other engineers while remaining hands-on with development.
Position may be performed in the following locations below.
- Tucson, AZ
- Gaithersburg, MD
- Alexandria, VA
- Chantilly, VA
- Englewood, CO
- St. Louis, MO
Clearance Level Required:
Active Top Secret/SCI with the ability to successfully pass a Polygraph examination.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead the design, development, integration, testing, deployment, and sustainment of a software application that supports our 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 a Scrum Master for an Agile software development team, 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 the 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 closely 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.
Basic Qualifications:
- US citizenship is required per contract.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field and 8-12 years of prior relevant experience or Master’s with 6-10 years of prior relevant experience. May possess a Doctorate in technical domain. Equivalent experience may be considered in lieu of degree.
- Proficiency with the following technologies:
o Web: HTML, CSS, JSON, Ajax, and REST APIs
o Object-oriented Programming: Python, Java, or JavaScript
o Front-end and Back-end Frameworks: React, Angular, Vue.js, jQuery, Spring Boot, Django, Node.js, Flask, or Svelte
o Cloud Development: AWS, Azure, or similar cloud platforms
o Relational Database: MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server
o Operating System: Windows, Linux
o Version Control System: 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.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience supporting Intelligence Community (IC) 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 for improved 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 (Terraform, Ansible, 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.
#Chinook
#NSBA
If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.
Original Posting:
October 15, 2026
For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.
Pay Range:
Pay Range $107,900.00 - $195,050.00
The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.
Responsibilities
- Lead software design, development, integration, testing, deployment, and sustainment for a GEOINT mission application.
- Translate mission and technical requirements into scalable software architecture, services, APIs, and integrations.
- Develop production software, backend services, web applications, databases, and automated tests.
- Troubleshoot complex production, integration, performance, and reliability issues.
- Support CI/CD, DevSecOps, cloud, and containerized environments.
- Serve as Scrum Master, facilitate Agile ceremonies, manage impediments, and promote continuous improvement.
- Mentor engineers and collaborate with cross-functional engineering and mission teams.
Qualifications
- U.S. citizenship and active Top Secret/SCI clearance with ability to pass a polygraph.
- Bachelor’s degree and 8–12 years of relevant experience, or master’s degree and 6–10 years; equivalent experience may be considered.
- Proficiency with Python, Java, or JavaScript; web technologies; modern frameworks; cloud platforms; relational databases; Windows or Linux; and Git.
- Strong experience with software architecture, application design, APIs, distributed applications, databases, and data modeling.
- Experience with DevSecOps, CI/CD, production troubleshooting, and Scrum Master responsibilities in an Agile team.
- Understanding of Agile methods, Scrum ceremonies, sprint planning, backlog management, and iterative delivery.
- Experience with Jira and Confluence.
Skills mentioned
About Leidos
Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government & commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $17.2 billion for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2026. Leidos was cited for the meaningful work employees perform that is challenging, impactful, and aligned with our customers’ missions as reasons professionals want to work and stay at our company. Leidos has also been named to lists including Forbes’ Best Employers for Diversity, Forbes’ America’s Best Employers for Women, Military Times Best for Vets Employers, and Ethisphere Institute’s World's Most Ethical Companies®. Employees enjoy career enrichment opportunities available through mobility and development and experience rewarding relationships with supportive supervisors and talented colleagues and customers. Employees appreciate our flexible work environment, allowing for and encouraging a true work-life balance. Our professionals are also excited about our Employee Resource Groups, like the Collaborative Outreach with Remote and Embedded Employees (CORE), which strives to create an environment where every employee, regardless of location, feels fully engaged as a valued employee of Leidos. Your most important work is ahead, visit careers.leidos.com for our latest opportunities.
H-1B sponsorship history
Historical employer filing data was found for Leidos. The employer record includes 364 historical certified applications. This is employer-level history, not a guarantee that this role currently offers sponsorship.