Senior Software Engineer - Top Secret
Sunayu · Alexandria, VA
$131,300–$237,350
Jul 16, 2026
Alexandria, VA
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A backend-focused software engineering role building distributed services, APIs, and microservices that underpin enterprise AI and analytics platforms for defense and intelligence community customers. The work spans cloud-native and Kubernetes-native development, event-driven architectures, and the integration of AI/ML, data engineering, and observability tooling. Candidates need an active Top Secret clearance and substantial experience in backend or data-science engineering.
Senior level · 12+ years · National · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (10)
No work location or metro area is specified in the posting; the CBSA is left blank. The posting explicitly states 'Remote Type: No', indicating on-site work is required but the site is not named.
The 12+ years requirement drops to 4+ years with a Master's degree. The 12-year figure is used as the overall years minimum per the standard minimum-of-range rule, but hiring managers should note the degree-based reduction.
Degree requirement is marked None because the posting explicitly accepts 'equivalent graduate degree' and states 'Additional/Relevant experience may be substituted for a degree.'
The clearance gate is Active Top Secret with eligibility for TS/SCI with Polygraph — the hardest gate stated is TS/SCI (with polygraph implied by 'eligibility for TS/SCI with Polygraph').
Languages (Rust, Go, Python, TypeScript, Django) are listed under a 'Preferred Languages' heading and are therefore preferred, not required.
The alt SOC (15-2051 Data Scientists) reflects the posting's significant emphasis on AI/ML, data science, and analytics alongside backend software engineering; the primary classification as Software Developers (15-1252) reflects the core deliverables of distributed services, APIs, and microservices.
Git, SVN, and JIRA are grouped under a single 'Familiarity with version control technologies' preferred requirement; SVN and JIRA are captured as alternatives since the posting treats them as interchangeable options in that context.
The 'Preferred Qualifications' section covers Azure/C2S, hardware platforms, advanced analytical methodologies, version control tools, and the listed technologies (NATS, Kafka, Redis, ClickHouse, OpenTelemetry, OpenRouter, LiteLLM) — all marked preferred.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): API development, cloud-native engineering.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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