Lead Software Engineer

Leidos has a new and exciting opportunity for a Lead Software Engineer in our Intel 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!

Job Summary

Leidos is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to join a high-impact, multi-agency program serving the United States Space Force (USSF) / Space Systems Command (SSC), the United States Air Force (USAF), and other critical mission stakeholders. The selected individual will play key role in enhancing, testing, and deploying a large-scale Satellite Communications (SATCOM) system to an existing infrastructure. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in public key infrastructure (PKI) and key management, excels at complex problem solving, and has a strong record of delivering results as part of a high-performing team in a fast-paced Agile Development environment. This position offers a unique opportunity to enhance the resilience and cybersecurity of mission-critical communications that protect our nation.

• This position is based near Columbia, Maryland, with possible alternative duty locations in San Diego, California, Englewood, Colorado, or Huntsville, Alabama. Relocation assistance may be available for qualified candidates.

Primary Responsibilities:

The Lead Software Engineer will provide hands-on support and leadership to guide development teams and drive the technical execution of a complex software development and integration program. In this role, he/she will architect and implement advanced software solutions while ensuring the codebase remains secure, efficient, and consistently high quality. The ideal candidate will quickly come up to speed with the existing system, establish technical standards and best practices, mentor and guide software engineers through regular code reviews and coaching, and lead the full software development lifecycle (SDLC) through deployment to ensure on-time, in-scope delivery. The Lead Software Engineer will serve as a senior technical resource for debugging and resolving critical production issues and will proactively recommend and implement improvements to both system architecture and development processes.

Responsibilities also include:

• Leading and participating in Agile ceremonies, including daily stand-ups, Sprint Planning, Program Increment (PI) Planning, and related team events.
• Analyzing and interpreting complex system requirements to inform software design and implementation.
• Appling sound software engineering principles to produce code that is modifiable, efficient, reliable, understandable, fault tolerant, and reusable.
• Providing software process management and control throughout the coding portion of the software development lifecycle.
• Promoting code reuse and cross-program collaboration by creating common functions and shared actions for developers and testers, reducing maintenance costs.
• Engineering, authoring, optimizing, and documenting automation scripts in a development environment and deploy them to test and production benches.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in a technical discipline and 12 years of related experience. Additional experience may be substituted for a degree.
• Must have at least 10 years of experience leading multiple software development teams while also contributing as a hands-on developer.
• Must have extensive demonstrated experience with Java.
• Must have experience or familiarity with multiple Java frameworks: Spring to include Boot and Data, Jackson, Jersey, Swing, JavaFX.
• Must have experience or familiarity with multiple languages such as Javascript, C/C++, Structured Query Language (SQL).
• Must have experience with development IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) such as Eclipse, Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Rhapsody, WebStorm.
• Must have experience with databases such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, SQL Server.
• Must have experience with Web Application User Interface Development, knowledge of databases and structures, Spring Framework, and/or experience working with AngularJS, JSON, HTML, XML, XSLT.
• Must have experience with software source control and configuration management tools.
• Must have experience developing on Windows operating systems.
• Must have documented professional experience with web services.
• Must have a strong understanding of sound software development principles and practices.
• Must have excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to build effective working relationships and interface professionally with peers and leadership, including developers, engineers, testers, customer points of contact, and company management.

Clearance Needed:

U.S. Citizenship with an Active or Current TS/SCI with Polygraph required.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with or in military Satellite Communications (SATCOM) organizations such as United States Air Force (USAF), United States Space Force (USSF), or another Agency.
• Experience working with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)/ key management programs and technologies.
• Experience with the following: SQL, application servers (Tomcat, WebLogic, JBoss), Spring framework, scripting.
• Certified Scrum Master.
• Experience or familiarity with multiple of the following technologies: XML/XSD/SOAP/WSDL/XSLT, REST, JSON, YAML, Containers (Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, OpenShift).
• Experience with Javascript frameworks: AngularJS, Bootstrap, JQuery.
• Experience with Testing and Mocking frameworks: JUnit, Jupiter, Mockito, Jasmine, Karma, Cucumber, Unified Functional Tester (UFT), Selenium, FITNesse.
• Experience with build tools: Maven, CMake, RPM, Jenkins, Nexus, NPM.
• Experience developing on Linux operating systems.
• Experience with technologies underlying cryptographic systems (symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, ASN.1 encoding, XML canonicalization, digital signatures, cryptographic message syntax, etc.).
• Experience with high level requirements management including requirements decomposition, secure systems engineering and development, trade-off analysis, interface control, and testing and continuous integration.
• Experience in software development on Agile teams using Agile Developer practices such as Pair Programming, Test Driven Development (TDD), Refactoring, and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD).
• Experience with Behavior Driven Development (BDD).
• Experience with Secure Software development (i.e., Layer 7 Policy).
• Experience with the Scrum, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) methodology, SAFe Agilest Certification, or experience as a member of an Agile team.

At Leidos, the opportunities are boundless. We challenge our staff with interesting assignments that allow them to thrive professionally and personally. For us, helping you grow your career is good business. We look forward to learning more about you - apply today.

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 13, 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 $131,300.00 - $237,350.00

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.