Principal Software Engineer – Mission Systems at Lynx Software Technologies, Inc.
Palmdale, CA
$160,000–$200,000from the description
Jul 10, 2026
Palmdale, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor role focused on designing, developing, integrating, and testing software for military aviation mission systems — covering areas such as tactical data links, aircraft sensor fusion, electronic warfare, communications, navigation, and weapons. The work targets real-time embedded C/C++ environments within complex avionics architectures, and suits an experienced engineer with a background in mission-critical defense software and an active Secret clearance.
Senior level · 8+ years · Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX · Bachelor's required · Secret clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 3 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
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 the occupation pays Median $136,221 (middle half $107,984–$167,709). 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 titled 'Principal Software Engineer' but the actual requirements — 8+ years of experience, hands-on C/C++ development, integration and testing — are consistent with a Senior individual contributor, not a true org-wide Principal. Seniority is assessed as Senior accordingly.
Two work locations are listed: Fort Worth, TX and Palmdale, CA. The CBSA is set to Dallas-Fort Worth as the primary/first-listed location; Palmdale falls within the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA CBSA (31080).
The role is explicitly 100% onsite; remote=false. The benefits section mentions 'remote work opportunities based on role' but the job requirements override this with a hard onsite requirement.
The C and C++ skills are listed together in the JD ('C/C++') and represent a single combined requirement; both are emitted as separate skills with each listed as an alternative for the other, reflecting that the JD treats them as a unified stack.
Mission systems domain experience (tactical/mission data links, CNI, weapon systems, EW, etc.) is a hard gate per the Basic Requirements section but names no single discrete technology tool — it is captured in the role's overall scope rather than as a named skill.
The compensation range of $160,000–$200,000 is stated as base salary plus bonus eligibility; the bonus amount is unspecified.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): real-time embedded 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.
Read the full posting
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