Software/Data Engineer (TS/SCI) at Akima
Chantilly, VA
$150,000–$170,000from the description
Jul 13, 2026
Chantilly, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role centers on building and maintaining data pipelines and ETL processes that feed a web-based search and analytics application for an IRS government customer. Day-to-day work involves writing Python data adapters, querying and transforming data from relational databases and file sources, managing Elasticsearch/OpenSearch clusters, and implementing CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code practices within an Agile Scrum team. An active Top Secret/SCI clearance is required.
Mid level · 3+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“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 $166,452 (middle half $130,866–$200,954). 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 (10)
The role title is 'Software/Data Engineer' with no seniority level in the title; advertised seniority is Unspecified. The 3–5 year experience requirement and scope (member-level Agile team contributor) support a Mid-level classification.
Clearance gate is explicit: 'Active Top Secret clearance and SCI eligibility with the ability to pass a CI polygraph' — this is a hard TS/SCI requirement with a polygraph.
The degree requirement is a hard gate: 'Bachelor's Degree in an IT related field' with no equivalent-experience substitution offered.
Python the years demanded is set to 3 (the minimum of the stated 3–5 year range); same for SQL.
Elasticsearch/OpenSearch appears in both the Responsibilities section (as a design/manage duty) and the Desired Qualifications section. It is listed as a desired/preferred qualification, so it is marked preferred; OpenSearch is captured as an alternative.
CI/CD is listed in Responsibilities as an implementation duty and is consistent with the required qualifications context; treated as a hard gate.
AWS appears only under Desired Qualifications and is marked preferred. Alternatives include Azure and GCP as common cloud platform substitutes.
Celery, RabbitMQ, and DevSecOps knowledge all appear exclusively under 'Desired qualifications' and are marked preferred.
The SOC code 15-1243 (Database Architects) is chosen because the primary day-to-day work centers on designing and building ETL pipelines, data adapters, and data warehouse integrations. 15-1252 (Software Developers) is a close runner-up given the Python development and CI/CD emphasis.
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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