Dahlgren, IL

Salary
$150,000–$200,000
Posted
Jul 15, 2026
Location
Dahlgren, IL
Last confirmed open
Jul 21, 2026

What this job asks for AI summary

A defense and aerospace organization is hiring a senior embedded software engineer to build and maintain mission-critical applications in C++ on VxWorks RTOS. Day-to-day work spans hardware/software integration, testing, debugging, and verification and validation activities, with collaboration across software, systems, and hardware teams. The role suits an experienced embedded engineer with a DoD Secret clearance and a background in real-time systems and multi-core architectures.

Senior level · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Bachelor's required · Secret clearance · Full-time

Must have (3)
C++VxWorksSMP
Nice to have (2)
Aegis Weapon SystemsBallistic Missile Defense

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

What gives you an edge
VxWorks2%

Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.

What the occupation pays Median $158,337 (middle half $126,441–$180,105).

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 (7)

The role is located in Dahlgren, VA (hybrid), which falls within the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV CBSA.

An active DoD Secret Security Clearance is explicitly listed as required in the Required Qualifications section, along with U.S. Citizenship.

SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) and multi-core architecture knowledge are listed under Required Qualifications as 'knowledge of' rather than hands-on experience, but they appear in the hard-gate section and are treated accordingly.

Aegis Weapon Systems, BMD, and AAW experience are listed under Preferred Qualifications; missile flight test and defense/aerospace background are also preferred but name no specific technology and are omitted from the skills list.

No compensation range is stated in the posting.

Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): embedded real-time systems.

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.

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