Software Development Engineer at Actalent
Nashville, TN
$40–$55/hrfrom the description
Jul 15, 2026
Nashville, TN
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A backend-heavy engineering contract role supporting and extending a globally deployed product while also contributing to frontend and backend work on a second product that incorporates agentic AI services. The work spans production support, new feature development, infrastructure-as-code on AWS, and some system design. Candidates with a background in Python and Linux are expected, and familiarity with AI/ML workflows is a plus.
Mid level · 2+ years · Remote · Contract
“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
Roughly 197,500 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 58,000–296,000
Applicant volume Heavy — This req sits in a large pool with little in its requirements to thin it, and auto-apply tools fire at everything in the occupation. Applying early and leading with the rare skills below is what gets read.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). 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 JD states a Bachelor's degree 'or equivalent experience', so no hard degree gate is set.
The minimum experience gate is 2 years of overall software development; the posting notes that ~4 years correlates with greater autonomy, and 4+ years is listed under 'Additional Skills & Qualifications' (the preferred/nice-to-have block). Seniority is assessed as Mid based on the 2-year hard minimum and the scope described.
AWS CDK is explicitly called out as the infrastructure-as-code tool required; AWS broadly is implied but CDK is the named gate.
AI/ML lifecycle familiarity (training, evaluation, deployment) appears under 'Essential Skills' with 'familiarity' language — it is in the required section so it is treated as a hard gate, though the softer 'familiarity' phrasing suggests a lower bar than deep expertise.
4+ years building and deploying AI/ML solutions in production is listed under 'Additional Skills & Qualifications' and is therefore preferred, not required.
Ruby, Go, and .NET are listed together under the preferred block as alternatives to Python for additional language breadth; they are captured as a single preferred skill with alternatives.
PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) appear only under 'Additional Skills & Qualifications' and are preferred.
The posting is placed by Actalent, a staffing firm; the end client and industry (controls engineering) are not named.
Posting is for a contract engagement — the market benchmarks below price full-time roles, so read the comp comparison with that in mind.
Caller marked this a fully-remote role — scored against the national candidate pool.
Read the full posting
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