Sr. Software Engineer

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At Parsons, you can imagine a career where you thrive, work with exceptional people, and be yourself. Guided by our leadership vision of valuing people, embracing agility, and fostering growth, we cultivate an innovative culture that empowers you to achieve your full potential. Unleash your talent and redefine what's possible.

Job Description:

Parsons has emerged as a leader in developing and delivering cutting-edge solutions to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community by staying relentlessly focused on mission impact and investing in exceptional people. Our success is driven by close collaboration with operators and analysts, ensuring the systems we build are not only innovative but operationally relevant, intuitive, and effective in real-world environments.

Within our Space Operations directorate, we are focused on enabling mission-critical capabilities that support national security in an increasingly contested and dynamic space domain. We bring together experienced subject matter experts and highly skilled technologists to deliver resilient, scalable solutions that directly support operational decision-making and execution.

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer who wants to work on systems that matter, supporting operational, system-of-record capabilities used by the space community. In this role, you will be part of a high-performing Agile engineering team developing and sustaining distributed, integration-heavy mission applications. You will operate in a fast-paced environment where understanding end-to-end system behavior, interfaces, and data flows is critical to success.

If you are looking to grow your technical depth while contributing to real-world mission outcomes and want to be part of a team solving complex national security challenges in the space domain, we want you on our team.

This is hybrid position in Colorado Springs and requires working in the office 2 days a week.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Design and implement high-performance, scalable microservices supporting real-time data processing and message throughput
• Develop and optimize Kafka-based event-driven systems, including topic design, partitioning strategies, and throughput tuning
• Analyze and improve end-to-end system performance, including latency, reliability, and data flow efficiency
• Collaborate across teams to design and implement integration pipelines across multiple data formats (e.g., binary, XML, JSON)
• Lead development of robust automated test strategies, including unit, integration, and end-to-end testing for distributed systems
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines and ensure quality gates (e.g., test coverage, static analysis) are enforced
• Participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, and technical decision-making
• Support troubleshooting and resolution of production issues, including performance bottlenecks and message processing failures
• Work within an Agile team to estimate, plan, and deliver capabilities aligned to mission priorities

Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with strong focus on backend systems
• Deep experience with Java and Spring Boot in a microservices architecture
• Strong experience with event-driven architectures and Kafka-based systems
• Proven ability to design systems for high throughput, low latency, and resiliency
• Experience with distributed system design, including data flow, fault tolerance, and scalability
• Experience with REST and/or GraphQL APIs
• Experience working with containerized environments (Kubernetes)
• Experience with PostgreSQL or similar relational databases
• Experience working with multiple data formats (e.g., binary, XML, JSON) and transformation pipelines
• Experience building and maintaining automated test suites, including:
  • Unit testing (e.g., JUnit)
  • Integration and end-to-end testing for messaging systems
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab, SonarQube)
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering teams
• U.S. Citizenship and ability to obtain a security clearance

Desired Skills

• Experience with DevSecOps practices in secure environments
• Experience supporting mission-critical or system-of-record systems
• Experience working in DoD or IC environments, including formal test and release governance
• Familiarity with data ingestion and transformation pipelines
• Experience with Robot Framework or similar test automation tools
• Experience with performance testing and observability tools
• Agile/Scrum experience
• Security+ certification
• Active TS clearance (with DCID eligibility)

Security Clearance Requirement:
An active Top Secret security clearance is required for this position.

This position is part of our Federal Solutions team.

The Federal Solutions segment delivers resources to our US government customers that ensure the success of missions around the globe. Our intelligent employees drive the state of the art as they provide services and solutions in the areas of defense, security, intelligence, infrastructure, and environmental. We promote a culture of excellence and close-knit teams that take pride in delivering, protecting, and sustaining our nation's most critical assets, from Earth to cyberspace. Throughout the company, our people are anticipating what's next to deliver the solutions our customers need now.

Salary Range: $112,200.00 - $196,400.00

We value our employees and want our employees to take care of their overall wellbeing, which is why we offer best-in-class benefits such as medical, dental, vision, paid time off, 401(k), life insurance, flexible work schedules, and holidays to fit your busy lifestyle!

This position will be posted for a minimum of 3 days and will continue to be posted for an average of 30 days until a qualified applicant is selected or the position has been cancelled.

Parsons is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other protected status.

We truly invest and care about our employee's wellbeing and provide endless growth opportunities as the sky is the limit, so aim for the stars! Imagine next and join the Parsons quest-APPLY TODAY!

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