Principal Software Engineer

Leidos has a new and exciting opportunity for a Principal Software Engineer in our Intelligence Sector's Cyber & Analytics Business Area (CABA). Our talented team is at the forefront in Security Engineering, Computer Network Operations (CNO), Mission Software, Analytical Methods and Modeling, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and Cryptographic Key Management. At Leidos, we offer competitive benefits, including Paid Time Off, 11 paid Holidays, 401K with a 6% company match and immediate vesting, Flexible Schedules, Discounted Stock Purchase Plans, Technical Upskilling, Education and Training Support, Parental Paid Leave, and much more. Join us and make a difference in National Security!

Program Summary

This is a large, multi-year Leidos-led prime contract supporting the development, integration, deployment, and sustainment of large collection systems. The work performed on this program is mission-critical to the government and focused on solving complex technical challenges within emerging technologies.

Team members operate with autonomy while contributing to a highly technical environment delivering impactful, mission-relevant solutions.

Job Summary

Leidos is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to design, implement, and enhance distributed application orchestration in a cloud-native environment. This role requires a senior engineer who contributes to architectural direction, leads development of scalable deployment solutions, and mentors team members while promoting best practices. The ideal candidate demonstrates ownership of system components, helps guide technical decisions and tradeoffs, contributes to shared tooling and standards, and applies a systems-level mindset across the platform.

Primary Responsibilities

• Design scalable workflows for deploying and managing Kubernetes-native applications
• Lead development of reusable Helm charts, GitOps templates, and deployment strategies
• Build system-aware controllers or agents to automate application lifecycle tasks
• Contribute to platform-wide architecture decisions, including deployment strategy, multi-cluster configuration, and observability
• Mentor junior engineers and conduct code reviews to ensure reliability, clarity, and best practices
• Collaborate with DevOps and platform teams to support secure and compliant deployments
• Help shape internal standards, shared tooling, and technical direction through design guidance and tradeoff analysis

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or similar technical discipline with 20 or more years of related experience
• Deep experience with Go or Python in cloud-native environments
• Strong Kubernetes experience, including CRDs, Helm, GitOps, and multi-tenant application deployments
• Experience with event-driven or agent-based systems (e.g., Kafka, controller patterns)
• Familiarity with infrastructure automation tools such as Terraform, cloud-init, or Ansible
• Experience working in complex environments balancing automation with operator oversight
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical efforts and contribute to system-level design decisions
• Clearance Requirement: Active TS/SCI with polygraph required

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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:
March 20, 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 $154,050.00 - $278,475.00

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.