Lead Software Engineer IV

Overview

At PNNL, core capabilities are divided among major departments called Directorates, each focusing on a specific scientific area or function. Our Science & Technology directorates include National Security, Earth and Biological Sciences, Physical and Computational Sciences, and Energy and Environment. The AI and Data Analytics Division within the National Security Directorate develops computational solutions for complex data and analytics challenges, delivering integrated tools across the data analytics lifecycle.

Richland, WA or Seattle, WA – onsite presence Monday through Thursday;
Friday required by business needs.

We are seeking an exceptional Lead Software Engineer to architect and build next‑generation AI systems at PNNL, spanning agentic AI platforms, petabyte‑scale data orchestration, and real‑time intelligence processing.

• AI‑Native Systems:
  Agentic AI with dynamic reasoning, LLM orchestration (Lang Chain, Llama Index, Lang Graph), MLOps platforms, and multi‑modal reasoning pipelines.
• Scalable Infrastructure:
  Microservices across security enclaves, real‑time streaming (TB/hour), petabyte‑scale ETL, data lake/mesh architectures, and Kubernetes/CI‑CD for classified & edge environments.
• Production Systems:
  Secure AI deployments, observability across enclaves, ethical AI compliance, and geospatial/time‑series intelligence data fusion.
• Technical Leadership:
  Lead engineers on high‑impact ambiguous scope, drive architecture and strategy, build roadmaps from cutting‑edge research, and mentor teams.

• Engineering Leadership:
  Expert Python and another language (C#/.NET, Go, C++); proven track record establishing best practices, advanced CI/CD, and architecting distributed systems.
• AI/ML Architecture:
  Production agentic AI experience; deep expertise with PyTorch/Tensor Flow/JAX and LLM orchestration; advanced LLM optimization (LoRA/PEFT, RAG, fine‑tuning); end‑to‑end ML platform design.
• Cloud & Distributed Systems:
  Enterprise‑scale architecture across AWS/Azure/GCP;
  Docker/Kubernetes/IaC; event‑driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ); API design mastery (REST, GraphQL, gRPC); polyglot persistence (SQL/No
  
  SQL/warehouses).
• Data Platform Engineering:
  Cloud‑native pipelines & orchestration (Airflow, Prefect); data lakehouse architectures; distributed computing (Spark, Flink, Ray); petabyte‑scale optimization and modern data formats (Parquet, Iceberg, Delta).
• Leadership & Communication:
  Mentoring teams, articulating strategy to executives & stakeholders, balancing delivery with technical excellence, and driving cross‑functional collaboration.

• Actively using Python for the previous five years.
• Expert‑level Python:
  Architecting production frameworks, libraries, and large multi‑language codebases at scale.
• Enterprise ETL/data platform leadership:
  Designing petabyte‑scale pipelines, orchestration (Airflow, Prefect, Step Functions), and data lakehouse architectures.
• Advanced cloud architecture:
  Multi‑cloud strategy across AWS, Azure, or GCP with Kubernetes and Infrastructure as Code at enterprise scale.
• FFRDC or national laboratory experience; national security/intelligence experience; production agentic AI/advanced LLM experience; distributed ML at scale.
• Technical team leadership:
  Proven experience leading engineering teams through ambiguous, high‑impact scope.

• PhD and 3 years software engineering experience –or-
• MS/MA and 5 years software engineering experience –or-
• BS/BA and 7 years software engineering experience –or-
• AA and 16 years software engineering experience –or-
• HS/GED and 18 years software engineering experience.
• Current, hands‑on software development experience using Python.

• Detect and prevent smuggling of drugs and contraband at ports of entry.
• Develop large data pipelines to thwart funding for terrorists, nuclear proliferators, drug cartels, and rogue leaders.
• Apply big data solutions to national security problems.
• Apply image classification for nuclear forensics analysis.
• Develop capabilities for scalable geospatial analytics.

This position requires the ability to obtain…