Principal Software Engineer
KBR · Colorado Springs, CO
$142,800–$214,200from the description
Jul 17, 2026
Colorado Springs, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior technical leadership role embedded with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Colorado Springs, focused on architecting and guiding development of distributed, high-availability software systems for national security missions. The position involves defining technical strategy, leading architecture and design reviews, overseeing high-velocity data stream processing, and mentoring multi-level engineering teams. Suits an experienced engineer comfortable operating as a trusted technical authority across programs and stakeholders, with an active TS/SCI clearance.
Senior level · 10+ years · Colorado Springs, CO · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $137,233 (middle half $108,638–$170,529). This posting is about at that midpoint.
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 (9)
The SOC classification is a genuine judgment call: the role is titled 'Principal Software Engineer' and the primary day-to-day work is hands-on software architecture and development, pointing to 15-1252. However, the role also carries significant people-management and cross-team coordination duties (mentoring engineers across all levels, coordinating staffing/scheduling, serving as trusted technical advisor to program leadership), which could support 11-3021. The IC/hands-on technical framing won out, but 11-3021 is a credible runner-up.
Seniority is assessed as Senior despite the 'Principal' title. The 10+ years requirement and scope — leading a team and owning architecture for a program — are consistent with a Senior engineer at a defense contractor/systems integrator. The posting does not describe org-wide or enterprise-wide technical authority across multiple programs in the way a true Principal IC role would; the title appears to be a KBR internal grade rather than a canonical Principal-band role.
Java and Python are listed together as alternatives under the required qualifications ('Java, Python, or other object-oriented programming languages'). Java is used as the primary name with Python in alternatives.
Distributed systems, real-time streaming, and software architecture are extracted as named technical capabilities from the required qualifications section, even though they are not product/tool names, because they represent concrete, assessable engineering competencies that gate this role.
CI/CD, DevSecOps, Agile, TDD, MIL-STD-6016, and MIL-STD-3011 all appear under the 'Desired Qualifications' section and are therefore preferred.
An active TS/SCI clearance is an explicit hard gate ('Active U.S. Government Top Secret / SCI security clearance') listed under Required Education and Experience.
The compensation range ($142,800–$214,200/year) is explicitly noted as applicable to the Colorado Springs area only.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): software architecture.
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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