Principal Software Engineer/Tech Lead
GCyber · Arlington, VA
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Jul 21, 2026
Arlington, VA
Jul 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior technical leadership role supporting a government customer's migration to a high-security cloud environment. The position combines hands-on engineering — building CI/CD pipelines, secure APIs, and data pipelines using tools like Jenkins, Ansible, Terraform, and Python — with broad organizational responsibilities including managing multiple Agile teams, setting architectural direction, and engaging with executive stakeholders. An active DoD TS/SCI clearance is required.
Principal level · 12+ years · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
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.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $178,991 (middle half $141,096–$225,584).
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 role is titled 'Principal Software Engineer/Tech Lead' but its responsibilities are heavily weighted toward people management (performance management, career development, succession planning, leading multiple teams) and executive-level stakeholder engagement — placing it squarely in engineering management (11-3021). The hands-on IC engineering duties are real but secondary; the alternative occupation code 15-1252 reflects the genuine technical depth required.
Location is not stated in the posting. The role supports a government/DoD customer and likely requires on-site presence given the active TS/SCI clearance requirement, but no specific city or metro was identified.
The posting lists 'PSSQL' — interpreted as PostgreSQL (a likely typo/abbreviation).
Degree requirement is effectively None: the posting states 'BA and 12+ years' but explicitly notes 'Additional years of experience may be considered in lieu of degree.'
IAT II Certification (e.g., Security+, CySA+, GICSP, GSEC, SSCP) is a hard gate per the Minimum Qualifications section but names no specific technology tool — omitted from the skills list per extraction rules.
Prior experience with DISA and its mission partners is listed as 'preferred' and has been omitted as it names no concrete technology.
Jira is listed with the qualifier 'or equivalent Agile Project Management software' — alternatives would include tools like Azure DevOps or Rally, but Jira is the named primary and is required per the Minimum Qualifications section.
Artifactory and Git appear in the required qualifications alongside Jenkins, Ansible, and Bitbucket as part of the DevOps pipeline experience requirement.
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.
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