About the RoleOur Modeling & Simulation team is building the next-generation wargaming and decision-support platform that helps the DoW make multi-billion-dollar force-design decisions before those decisions are made in the real world. The team spans simulation and physics, backend and data systems, frontend and geospatial visualization, and AI systems, working together to turn operational questions into extensible, mission- and campaign-level simulations that government users can trust.
In this role, you'll lead the backend and data engineering team that builds the Python services, APIs, and data systems powering our wargaming and decision-support platform. You'll balance people leadership with hands-on technical ownership - bringing Principal-level backend engineering judgment to the team's architecture and code, staying closely engaged in design and code review, and personally stepping in on the hardest technical problems, while growing a team of backend and data engineers.
What You'll Do- Lead and grow a high-performing backend and data engineering team while remaining hands-on in the codebase.
- Define the technical direction for backend services, APIs, data systems, and integrations across simulation, AI, frontend, and platform teams.
- Design, build, and operate secure, reliable Python services, APIs, workers, and integration layers.
- Translate product, research, and domain requirements into clear architectures, technical plans, and incrementally deliverable work.
- Establish strong engineering standards for API design, service boundaries, testing, observability, error handling, migrations, security, and code review.
- Build enterprise-grade software for cloud, private-cloud, customer-managed, on-premises, and disconnected environments.
- Partner with platform and data engineering leaders to ensure systems are deployable, observable, performant, and maintainable.
- Lead design reviews, RFCs, technical grooming, and pragmatic decisions across speed, correctness, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
- Debug and resolve complex issues spanning services, databases, queues, APIs, infrastructure, and third-party integrations.
- Review code, mentor engineers, and uphold a high bar for quality-including the validation of AI-assisted code in high-assurance environments.
- Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and government stakeholders to align platform capabilities with mission needs.
- Recruit, develop, and scale the backend and data engineering organization; at senior levels, help forecast headcount and technical capacity.
Required Qualifications- Significant experience building and operating production backend systems for enterprise software.
- Strong Python programming skills and experience designing services, APIs, background workers, and integration layers.
- Proven technical leadership, including architecture guidance, code review, mentoring, and delivery ownership for a small team.
- Strong understanding of service architecture, domain modeling, API contracts, system boundaries, and failure modes.
- Experience with relational databases-preferably PostgreSQL-along with strong SQL and data-modeling fundamentals.
- Experience with ORMs and database migration frameworks, such as SQLAlchemy, Alembic, Django ORM, or comparable tools.
- Experience delivering secure, reliable, observable software in production environments.
- Familiarity with cloud deployment patterns in AWS, Azure, GCP, or similar platforms.
- Experience supporting software deployed beyond standard SaaS environments, including private cloud, on-premises, customer-managed, appliance-style, or disconnected deployments.
- Ability to make practical decisions around data consistency, reliability, observability, and operational support.
- Strong cross-functional communication skills and the ability to turn ambiguous requirements into clear plans and working software.
Strongly Preferred- Experience leading backend or data engineering teams on simulation, analytics, or decision-support platforms.
- Familiarity with agentic AI frameworks, machine learning tooling, or ML pipeline integration.
- Experience with cloud-based distributed systems (AWS, GCP, Azure) and Docker/containerized development.
- Experience designing rule-driven systems, policy engines, or configuration-driven business logic.
- Experience managing managers, or growing engineers into technical-lead roles.
- Active U.S. security clearance (Secret, Top Secret, or SCI/SAP).
- Experience with observability practices and tooling, including structured logging, metrics, tracing, health checks, alerting, and service dashboards.
- Experience with authentication, authorization, RBAC, audit logging, and secure service-to-service communication.
- Experience designing systems that integrate with external services, legacy systems, third-party APIs, simulators, data pipelines, or customer-owned infrastructure.
- Experience with geospatial systems, simulation systems, planning systems, logistics systems, or other complex operational domains.
- Experience helping teams establish engineering practices without adding unnecessary process or slowing delivery.
Benefits- Pay depends on experience, but we strive to be at the upper end of the salary range
- Health care plan with 100% premium coverage, including medical, dental, and vision
- 401k with 5% matching
- Paid Time Off (uncapped vacation, plus sick and public holidays)
- Flexible hybrid or remote work arrangement
- Relocation assistance for qualifying employees
Wage Transparency - The salary range for this role is not a guarantee of compensation or salary, as the final offer amount may vary based on factors including, but not limited to, individual proficiency, skills, experience, and location.
