Principal Engineering Lead

This is a U.S. based position. All of the programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S.

We’re looking for an experienced Principal Engineering Lead to support our Intelligence Community customer(s) and join our passionate team of high‑impact problem solvers. This role leads a cross‑functional engineering team, architect mission‑critical solutions, and serves as the primary technical face of Raft to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). You will guide enterprise deployments within the Intelligence Community, provide future‑proof plans, serve as a customer‑facing technical point of contact, deliver demonstrations, translate mission requirements into executable plans, write code, design microservices, stand up data pipelines, and deploy AI/ML models in classified environments.

You will mentor engineers, drive agile practices, champion cloud‑native best practices, and write plugins, applications, webhooks, and modules to support multiple teams.

• 8+ years hands‑on software engineering experience with a proven track record of leading engineering teams to production at enterprise scale, including work supporting Intelligence Community missions in classified environments
• Demonstrated experience leading and mentoring cross‑functional engineering teams
• Customer‑facing technical leadership – leading demos, presenting to senior stakeholders, and translating mission requirements into technical plans
• Experience building production applications at scale in multiple languages, with a JVM‑based language (Java, Scala, Kotlin, Golang) among them
• Experience with design patterns and architectural decision records (ADRs)
• Ability to design abstract modules, interfaces, classes, and concepts that can be leveraged and customized by multiple software teams
• Experience recommending tooling choices to multiple teams based on their requirements
• Ability to explain highly complex technical details in plain language
• Deep understanding of CI/CD pipelines using Git Hub Actions, Git Lab, Jenkins, Concourse, etc.
• Experience building applications that follow 12‑factor app principles and/or the reactive manifesto
• Experience deploying applications to Cloud Foundry and/or Kubernetes, including Helm chart development and container orchestration (Docker, OCI)
• Experience with AWS services (S3, EC2, ECS, Lambda, Bedrock) and/or Azure analytics and AI/ML offerings
• Strong background in AI/ML systems including model development, training, deployment, and MLOps
• Experience with data engineering: batch and streaming ETL pipelines, data lakehouse architectures, and event streaming applications using Kafka, Flink, Pulsar, or similar technologies
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, or a related field
• Active TS/SCI clearance
• Previous work supporting Intelligence Community missions and familiarity with classified environments

• Direct experience with National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) programs, data systems, or mission requirements
• Track record of leading R&D initiatives that resulted in new business capture or competitive advantage
• Experience building agentic AI workflows with tool calling, Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementations, and multi‑step reasoning systems
• Experience deploying and optimizing LLM infrastructure (vLLM, PyTorch, Tensor Flow), RAG frameworks, and autonomous data fusion systems
• Experience with data lakehouse technologies:
  Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg, Apache Flink, Apache Trino, or Py Spark
• Experience implementing Common Core Ontology (CCO) standards and semantic modeling frameworks
• Familiarity with graph databases (Neo4j, Neptune, Arango
  
  DB) and graph processing frameworks, including graph visualization tools, complex graph algorithms, or distributed graph processing
• Track record of speaking at public‑facing conferences about software engineering, data engineering, or AI/ML
• Knowledge of modern software trends and their pros and cons
• Multiple significant projects involving large‑scale software applications
• Security+ or equivalent DoD 8570 baseline certification or equivalent
• Master’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, Information Technology, or a related field

• Active Top Secret clearance with the ability to obtain and maintain SCI

• Onsite in Chantilly, VA
• Ability to work from a SCIF at least 4 days a week
• May require up to 30% travel

$ – $

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) and company match
• Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Annual budget for technical needs

We’re an equal‑opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.