Lead Software Architect; Security Clearance

Position: Lead Software Architect (2026-0134) with Security Clearance
Acclaim Technical Services, founded in 2000, is a leading cyber operations, intelligence solutions and operations, network infrastructure, engineering and business enablement and enterprise operations company supporting a wide range of U.S. Federal agencies. We are an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) company, which is uncommon within our business sector. We see this as a significant strength, and it shows: ATS is consistently ranked as a top workplace among DC area firms and continues to grow.

We are actively hiring a Software Architect with a TS/SCI clearance and polygraph to support a program in Chantilly, VA. In this role you will lead the architecture, technical evolution, and operational design of a large-scale, globally distributed mission platform deployed across multiple countries and managed remotely from the United States. This platform supports real-time transaction processing, distributed data management, integration with external government and commercial systems, peripheral/device orchestration, and centralized observability and administration.

The successful candidate will be the overall software architecture authority for a modern Linux-based platform composed of approximately 25 core microservices and a broad set of supporting/integration services. The environment is cloud-heavy, distributed, operationally critical, and deployed in both constrained edge settings and larger centralized/cloud environments. This role requires someone who can define and govern architecture while remaining grounded in the realities of runtime operations, resilience, fieldability, and maintainability.

What You'll Be Doing:
* Own the overall software architecture for a distributed microservices platform running across global environments
* Maintain and evolve an ecosystem of approximately 25 core Java-based microservices and a comparable set of supporting and integration services
* Define and govern architecture across service boundaries and contracts, data flows and event patterns, control plane and backplane behavior, node roles and deployment topologies, observability, fault tolerance, and service recovery.
* Lead architecture for a platform based on: RHEL / Rocky Linux, Java (JDK 21+), Vue.js 3 frontends, MongoDB for persistent data, Elasticsearch / Logstash and RabbitMQ for ephemeral/search/event data flows, Consul, Nomad, and Vault for service discovery, orchestration, and secrets management
* Architect deployment patterns for multiple node types, including server nodes, data nodes, arbiter nodes, workstation/user-facing nodes
* Guide the technical design of core operational services responsible for: transactional processing, rules/screening/correlation workflows, authorization and access control, reference/master data management, language/internationalization support, health/status services, biometric or matching-oriented services built on open-source components,
* Oversee architecture for peripheral/device services supporting integration with a broad set of external devices and sensors
* Lead integration architecture for external standards-based and partner system interfaces, including third-party government systems, commercial travel/identity/manifest-style systems, country/customer-specific extensions
* Ensure the platform remains remotely observable, supportable, and maintainable across all deployments
* Partner with cloud, network, security, data, field engineering, and operations teams to align architecture with deployment realities
* Review and guide software design decisions, technical debt reduction, modernization priorities, and roadmap sequencing
* Serve as a senior technical authority in design reviews, readiness reviews, problem resolution, and major incident analysis

Required Skills:

* Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field. (4 Additional years of experience can substitute for a degree.)
* 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time in software architecture roles for distributed or mission-critical systems
* 5+ years architecting microservices-based platforms in production
* Demonstrated ability to serve as the technical authority over a multi-service software ecosystem
* Experience guiding multiple development teams and reviewing architecture across service boundaries
* Strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to produce design artifacts and present architecture decisions clearly
* Experience balancing long-term architecture quality with delivery constraints and operational realities
* Deep hands-on expertise with:
Java on modern JDKs, preferably JDK 21+, Linux-based production environments, preferably RHEL / Rocky Linux, distributed service design and operational patterns
* Strong experience with MongoDB, Elasticsearch / Logstash, RabbitMQ or equivalent event/messaging platforms, service discovery/orchestration/secrets technologies such as Consul,…