Staff Software Lead/Architect (Level 5)
$177,000–$265,600 year
On-siteRedondo Beach, California, United States
Job Summary
Support the architecture definition for a containerized, cloud-deployed mission planning system by developing technical roadmaps, designing integration patterns with Kafka, and creating CAMEO models to communicate designs to stakeholders. Collaborate with product owners and systems engineers to refine requirements into scalable technical designs, define non-functional requirements, and guide implementation in Java, Python, or C++ to ensure alignment with architectural standards. Establish and enforce architectural patterns for microservices and event-driven architectures while supporting CI/CD pipeline design and DevSecOps practices for cloud-hosted deployments. Perform design and code reviews focused on reliability and maintainability, and participate in risk identification for technology choices. This role requires Top Secret clearance and is contingent on program award capture.
Required Qualifications
- Active U.S. Government Top Secret clearance at time of application, with the ability and willingness to obtain Special Program Access within a reasonable period of time as determined by the company
- Bachelor's degree in a STEM discipline with 12+ years of software engineering experience
- Master's degree in a STEM discipline with 10+ years of stated experience
- Ph.D. in a STEM discipline with 8+ years of stated experience
- Strong programming skills in at least one of the following: Java, Python, or C++
- Prior experience designing and implementing distributed systems
- Prior leadership experience as a software architect, lead engineer, or comparable technical leadership role
- Experience designing and deploying cloud applications, including event‐driven architectures, microservices, and Kafka‐based solutions
- Familiarity with CI/CD and modern DevSecOps practices (e.g., automated testing, container image scanning, infrastructure as code)
- Experience with Kafka or other asynchronous communication protocols
- U.S. Citizenship
Desired Qualifications
- Active U.S. Government TS/SCI clearance
- Solid understanding of software design principles and patterns (e.g., data‐driven design, loosely coupled design, domain‐driven design)
- Experience architecting and deploying applications to at least one major cloud platform (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), including use of managed services where appropriate
- Experience designing systems for space mission planning or other near real‐time planning and scheduling domains
- Experience with stream processing frameworks (e.g., Kafka Streams) or event‐sourcing/CQRS patterns
- Experience modeling complex systems using UAF, UML, SysML, or similar formal modeling notations
- Knowledge of distributed system concerns, such as blue/green or canary deployments for cloud applications and fault tolerance
- Experience with API design (REST, gRPC, GraphQL) and contract‐first development (e.g., OpenAPI, protobuf)
- Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g., Helm, Terraform, CloudFormation) for repeatable deployment of cloud and Kubernetes resources
- Background in security for cloud and containerized systems, including authentication/authorization, secrets management, network segmentation, and compliance considerations
- Hands‐on experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Podman, Kubernetes)
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