Senior Software Engineer
Belay Technologies · Fort Meade, MD
$190,000–$240,000from the description
Jun 30, 2026
Fort Meade, MD
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A full-stack engineering role on an intelligence community team focused on endpoint data collection and analysis. Day-to-day work spans maintaining and modernizing front-end interfaces, optimizing Python backends, managing containerized deployments, and building REST middleware and analytics pipelines within a classified NSA network environment. The role suits an experienced engineer comfortable operating across the entire stack in a fast-paced, mission-driven setting who holds an active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph.
Senior level · 12+ years · Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD · 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 $141,954 (middle half $107,994–$205,328). 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 (12)
TS/SCI with polygraph is a hard gate explicitly stated in the qualifications section.
The degree requirement is a B.S. in a technical discipline, but the JD explicitly accepts 4 additional years of experience in lieu of the degree — however, since the JD frames the degree as the baseline and experience as a substitute, the degree requirement is set to Bachelors per the stated minimum; note that 16 total years of experience can substitute.
The 12-year experience figure comes from the qualifications section: '12 yrs., B.S. in a technical discipline or 4 additional yrs. in place of B.S.' — the overall years minimum is set to 12 (the B.S. path minimum).
NSANet experience is listed as a hard gate under Skill Requirements, referencing familiarity with classified environment ecosystems (MACHINESHOP, C2S, GHOSTMACHINE). This is a mission-specific environment requirement that will significantly constrain the candidate pool.
HTML and CSS appear together in the responsibilities section (maintaining front-end interfaces) but are listed under responsibilities/context rather than the formal Skill Requirements block; emitted as separate preferred skills.
Bootstrap and jQuery appear in the responsibilities narrative (existing front-end maintenance), not in the Skill Requirements section; marked preferred.
Asyncio, Pandas, Docker, Nginx, and GitLab CI/CD all appear in the responsibilities narrative, not the Skill Requirements section; marked preferred.
Claude Code, Codex, and Opencode are listed under the 'desired' (preferred) section; Claude Code is the primary with the others as alternatives since they are presented as interchangeable AI-assisted development tools.
React, Angular, and Vue are listed under the desired skills section as modern UI libraries; marked preferred with alternatives.
AWS is listed under desired skills as a cloud-based hosting environment example; marked preferred.
MACHINESHOP, C2S, GHOSTMACHINE, TURBINE/ASGARD are classified NSA-specific platforms — they are referenced in the requirements and desired sections but are not emitted as standalone skills since they are not widely-known canonical technology names outside this cleared environment; NSANet experience as a gate captures the environment familiarity 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.
Read the full posting
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