We are actively hiring a
Software Architect with a TS/SCI clearance and polygraph to support a program in
Chantilly, VA. In this role you will lead the architecture, technical evolution, and operational design of a large-scale, globally distributed mission platform deployed across multiple countries and managed remotely from the United States. This platform supports real-time transaction processing, distributed data management, integration with external government and commercial systems, peripheral/device orchestration, and centralized observability and administration.
The successful candidate will be the overall software architecture authority for a modern Linux-based platform composed of approximately 25 core microservices and a broad set of supporting/integration services. The environment is cloud-heavy, distributed, operationally critical, and deployed in both constrained edge settings and larger centralized/cloud environments. This role requires someone who can define and govern architecture while remaining grounded in the realities of runtime operations, resilience, fieldability, and maintainability.
What You'll Be Doing: - Own the overall software architecture for a distributed microservices platform running across global environments
- Maintain and evolve an ecosystem of approximately 25 core Java-based microservices and a comparable set of supporting and integration services
- Define and govern architecture across service boundaries and contracts, data flows and event patterns, control plane and backplane behavior, node roles and deployment topologies, observability, fault tolerance, and service recovery.
- Lead architecture for a platform based on: RHEL / Rocky Linux, Java (JDK 21+), Vue.js 3 frontends, MongoDB for persistent data, Elasticsearch / Logstash and RabbitMQ for ephemeral/search/event data flows, Consul, Nomad, and Vault for service discovery, orchestration, and secrets management
- Architect deployment patterns for multiple node types, including server nodes, data nodes, arbiter nodes, workstation/user-facing nodes
- Guide the technical design of core operational services responsible for: transactional processing, rules/screening/correlation workflows, authorization and access control, reference/master data management, language/internationalization support, health/status services, biometric or matching-oriented services built on open-source components,
- Oversee architecture for peripheral/device services supporting integration with a broad set of external devices and sensors
- Lead integration architecture for external standards-based and partner system interfaces, including third-party government systems, commercial travel/identity/manifest-style systems, country/customer-specific extensions
- Ensure the platform remains remotely observable, supportable, and maintainable across all deployments
- Partner with cloud, network, security, data, field engineering, and operations teams to align architecture with deployment realities
- Review and guide software design decisions, technical debt reduction, modernization priorities, and roadmap sequencing
- Serve as a senior technical authority in design reviews, readiness reviews, problem resolution, and major incident analysis
Required Skills: - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field. (4 Additional years of experience can substitute for a degree.)
- 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time in software architecture roles for distributed or mission-critical systems
- 5+ years architecting microservices-based platforms in production
- Demonstrated ability to serve as the technical authority over a multi-service software ecosystem
- Experience guiding multiple development teams and reviewing architecture across service boundaries
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to produce design artifacts and present architecture decisions clearly
- Experience balancing long-term architecture quality with delivery constraints and operational realities
- Deep hands-on expertise with: Java on modern JDKs, preferably JDK 21+, Linux-based production environments, preferably RHEL / Rocky Linux, distributed service design and operational patterns
- Strong experience with MongoDB, Elasticsearch / Logstash, RabbitMQ or equivalent event/messaging platforms, service discovery/orchestration/secrets technologies such as Consul, Nomad, Vault, Kubernetes, or similar
- Experience designing systems that operate across constrained edge environments, centralized or cloud-heavy environments, globally distributed deployments with intermittent or variable connectivity
- Proven ability to architect for: resilience and graceful degradation, observability and diagnosability, secure service-to-service communication, multi-role user administration and authorization, remote support and lifecycle management
- Domestic and/or international project travel may be required.
Desired Skills: - Master's degree in data engineering, Computer Science, Analytics, or related field
- Experience with Vue.js 3 and modern frontend architecture patterns for administrative or operational interfaces
- Experience with hybrid cloud and cloud-heavy deployments where backend services are centralized and edge nodes are thin
- Experience integrating with external standards-based government, identity, travel, or partner ecosystems
- Experience designing platforms that manage or integrate with peripherals/devices such as scanners, readers, imaging devices, kiosks, or other edge hardware
- Experience with Nomad/Consul/Vault specifically in production
- Experience architecting systems with zero/low downtime upgrade paths
- Experience with semantic, cognitive, or advanced search use cases on Elasticsearch
- Familiarity with event replay, reconciliation, and offline-sync patterns
- Experience working closely with field engineering or remote deployment teams
- Experience with large-scale modernization of legacy monoliths to service-oriented or microservices-based platforms
- Familiarity with open-source biometric, matching, search, or image processing components
- Experience with multilingual/internationalized systems deployed across multiple countries or regions
- Experience supporting operational analytics/reporting services built on transaction/event data
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines and release discipline for multi-service distributed systems
