1325 - System Engineer - Mid-Level = Pos: 857 - System Engineer (SE) - Skill Level 3

1325 - System Engineer - Mid-Level = Pos: 857 - System Engineer (SE) - Skill Level 3
Forte Meade, MD (onsite)
5+ year contract role

Client is seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Level 3) to support a mission-critical program within the Intelligence Community in an on-site SCIF environment. This role is responsible for designing, implementing, and improving distributed application orchestration across a Kubernetes-native platform. The ideal candidate will provide architectural leadership, develop reusable deployment frameworks, and mentor engineers while driving secure, scalable, and compliant solutions in a classified environment.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable workflows for deploying and managing Kubernetes-native applications, including multi-tenant and multi-cluster configurations
• Lead development of reusable Helm charts, GitOps templates, and deployment strategies
• Build controllers or agents to automate application lifecycle management
• Contribute to platform-wide architecture decisions, including deployment strategy and observability
• Design and implement event-driven architectures using Kafka, controller patterns, or similar technologies
• Develop and maintain Kubernetes controllers and operators using Go or Python
• Ensure systems meet reliability and security requirements for classified environments
• Implement infrastructure-as-code using Terraform, cloud-init, Ansible, or equivalent tools
• Support GitOps pipeline design using ArgoCD, Fleet, or similar tools
• Contribute to CI/CD pipeline design and code review standards
• Collaborate with DevOps and platform teams to ensure secure and compliant deployments
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers and guide technical decision-making
• Conduct code reviews with a focus on reliability and security
• Define and promote engineering standards, reusable components, and shared tooling
• Ensure deployments align with DISA STIGs and program security policies
• Support secure secrets management and certificate lifecycle integration in Kubernetes
• Balance automation with operator oversight in classified environments

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, primarily in cloud-native, Kubernetes-based, or distributed systems
• Active TS/SCI clearance with Full Scope Polygraph (must be active prior to start)
• Strong experience coding in Go and/or Python in cloud-native environments
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes, including CRDs, Helm, GitOps, and multi-tenant deployments
• Experience with event-driven or agent-based systems (e.g., Kafka, controller patterns)
• Familiarity with infrastructure automation tools such as Terraform or Ansible
• Demonstrated ownership of end-to-end system component delivery
• Proven mentorship and technical leadership experience
• Ability to balance automation with operational oversight in classified environments
• Familiarity with two or more of the following: TypeScript, OpenShift or Rancher Government Solutions, service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd), observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry), AWS GovCloud/C2S/SC2S, cross-domain solutions, DoD 8140 IASAE Level II or III certifications