Software Developer; Backend – API

Position: Software Developer (Backend – API)

Job Family

Data Science & Analysis

Travel Required

Up to 10%

Clearance Required

Active Top Secret (TS)

Guidehouse is seeking a Software Developer to join our Technology / AI and Data team, supporting mission‑critical initiatives for Defense and Security clients. In this role, you will lead the design and development of backend services that power advanced AI‑driven platforms, enabling secure, scalable, and high‑performance workflows. You will build and optimize APIs and service layers that integrate AI/ML capabilities, retrieval systems, and analyst‑facing applications, while ensuring compliance with rigorous federal security and regulatory standards.

Collaborating closely with engineers, architects, and mission stakeholders, you will deliver innovative solutions that enhance operational effectiveness and support national security objectives.

What You Will Do

• Serves as the lead backend engineer designing, implementing, and optimizing the API and service layer powering the FBI’s AI‑based adjudication platform.
• Builds scalable backend services integrating LLM inference, retrieval pipelines, scoring engines, memo‑generation tools, and analyst‑facing applications.
• Ensures backend components meet FedRAMP High, RMF, CJIS, and FBI ATO requirements, including secure coding, access management, structured logging, and auditability.
• Collaborates 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 supporting document ingestion, inference requests, retrieval operations, scoring workflows, and memo generation.
• Develop backend microservices supporting adjudication logic, workflow routing, metadata extraction, entity processing, and evidence‑correlation functionality.
• Develop 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

• Develop workflow 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.
• Ensure all integrations enforce strict authentication, authorization, validation, and audit requirements.

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.
• Develop backend utilities for PII redaction, classification enforcement, entity labeling, and evidence tagging to support adjudication review.
• Ensure all document ingestion and processing steps maintain full traceability and error‑handling visibility.

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 ensure enforcement of RBAC, workload identity policies, encryption patterns, and API authorization controls.
• Ensure all backend components and workflows meet compliance expectations for chain‑of‑custody, evidence provenance, and adjudicator accountability.

Performance Optimization & Reliability

• Optimize backend services using caching layers, indexing strategies, pagination, connection pooling, batching, and concurrency tuning.
• Implement reliability patterns such as circuit breakers, exponential backoff strategies,…