Senior Scala Software Engineer at STR
Arlington, VA
$140,000–$170,000from the description
Jul 21, 2026
Arlington, VA
Jul 23, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior engineering role focused on building distributed microservices and high-performance APIs for national security applications, including mission planning tools, command-and-control interfaces, and AI autonomy platforms. The work centers on resilient distributed computing at the tactical edge, using typed functional programming in Scala 3. It suits engineers with a strong grasp of functional design, distributed systems correctness, and an active DoD SECRET clearance.
Mid level · 3+ years · Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH · Bachelor's required · Secret clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Senior, but the requirements read as Mid.
“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
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $169,742 (middle half $134,780–$187,781). 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 (8)
The role is hybrid (not fully remote), with offices in Woburn, MA and Arlington, VA. The primary CBSA is Boston (Woburn, MA); the Arlington, VA location falls under the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV CBSA (47900). Candidates may be based at either site.
Seniority is assessed as Mid despite the 'Senior' title. The experience gate is 3–5 years for BS holders and only 1–2 years for MS holders, which is solidly mid-level on a career ladder. The scope (feature ownership within an existing product, not org-wide technical authority) also supports Mid.
Scala is the primary required language; the JD explicitly accepts 'strong fluency in another typed functional language' as a substitute — alternatives reflect common typed functional peers.
The tech stack section ('Our Tech Stack') is treated as preferred/context rather than hard gates, consistent with it being a descriptive stack listing rather than a requirements block.
Bonus Points items (CRDTs, gossip/P2P protocols, probabilistic data structures, delay-tolerant networking, deterministic simulation testing) are all preferred.
An active DoD Secret clearance is explicitly required ('active DoD SECRET Clearance'). US citizenship is also required.
The degree requirement is Bachelor's in CS or a related technical field; a Master's is listed as an alternative path with a lower experience threshold, but a BS is the minimum stated degree.
Requires a Secret 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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