Software Developer; Backend - API

Position: Software Developer (Backend - API)

Software Developer (Backend - API) position at Guidehouse
. Join our Technology / AI and Data team to support mission‑critical initiatives for Defense and Security clients.

Job Details

Job Family: Data Science & Analysis
Travel Required: Up to 10%
Clearance Required: Active Top Secret (TS)

What You Will Do

• Lead backend engineering for the FBI’s AI‑based adjudication platform: design, implement, and optimize API and service layers.
• Build scalable backend services integrating LLM inference, retrieval pipelines, scoring engines, memo‑generation tools, and analyst‑facing applications.
• Ensure backend components meet FedRAMP High, RMF, CJIS, and FBI ATO requirements, including secure coding, access management, structured logging, and auditability.
• Collaborate with AI/ML engineers, cloud developers, frontend developers, and mission stakeholders to deliver a unified, mission‑aligned adjudication system.

Backend Architecture & API Engineering

• Design and implement secure REST and Graph
  
  QL APIs for document ingestion, inference requests, retrieval operations, scoring workflows, and memo generation.
• Develop backend microservices for adjudication logic, workflow routing, metadata extraction, entity processing, and evidence‑correlation functionality.
• Create schema‑driven payload contracts ensuring consistency, provenance tracking, and audit trail enforcement across adjudication workflows.
• Implement high‑throughput request‑handling patterns including async workers, job queues, batching, parallel processing, and retry frameworks.

Workflow Orchestration & System Integration

• Build orchestration logic integrating LLM inference services, embedding pipelines, vector retrieval layers, SEAD‑4 scoring modules, and analyst review triggers.
• Implement event‑driven integration using SQS/SNS, Kafka, Event Bridge, or Step Functions to coordinate asynchronous scoring and memo‑processing workflows.
• Integrate backend systems with case management solutions, identity systems, financial/criminal data feeds, and adjudication‑history repositories.
• Enforce strict authentication, authorization, validation, and audit requirements across all integrations.

Data Processing, Document Handling & Transformation

• Develop parsers and transformation functions for SF‑86 forms, attachments, investigative summaries, and multi‑component evidence files.
• Implement chunking, segmentation, metadata extraction, and normalization pipelines to support RAG workflows and long‑context LLM inference.
• Build utilities for PII redaction, classification enforcement, entity labeling, and evidence tagging to support adjudication review.
• Maintain full traceability and error‑handling visibility for all document ingestion and processing steps.

Security, Compliance & Logging

• Apply secure coding practices aligned with FedRAMP High, RMF, OWASP, CJIS, and FBI ATO requirements.
• Implement structured audit logging, inference logs, retrieval traces, scoring records, and analyst‑override events for audit and compliance purposes.
• Collaborate with security engineers to enforce RBAC, workload identity policies, encryption patterns, and API authorization controls.
• Meet compliance expectations for chain‑of‑custody, evidence provenance, and adjudicator accountability.

Performance Optimization & Reliability

• Optimize services using caching layers, indexing strategies, pagination, connection pooling, batching, and concurrency tuning.
• Implement reliability patterns such as circuit breakers, exponential backoff strategies, distributed locks, fallback mechanisms, and DLQ routing.
• Develop metrics for latency, throughput, failure modes, and degradation patterns; integrate them into monitoring dashboards.
• Maintain stability and predictable performance under high‑volume adjudication workloads.

Collaboration, Leadership & Mission Enablement

• Partner with AI/ML teams to ensure backend services support model requirements, inference routing, retrieval assembly, and structured output delivery.
• Collaborate with frontend developers to design and refine backend endpoints for dashboards, memo builders, workflow tools, and risk‑display interfaces.
• Participate in sprint ceremonies, architecture reviews, peer code reviews, and stakeholder…