Principal Full Stack Engineer Jobs in Washington, DC

Job Family:

Cyber Engineering (CYS)

Travel Required:

Up to 10%

Clearance Required:

None

What You Will Do:

We are hiring a senior engineer to maintain and extend a large full-stack Governance, Risk, and Compliance platform. The product is not a simple scanner wrapper. The current codebase includes a substantial FastAPI backend, a React/TypeScript frontend, a PostgreSQL data model, an async worker system, scanner integrations, an AI provider abstraction, a compliance framework catalog, audit/reporting workflows, and local/cloud deployment infrastructure.
The ideal candidate can work confidently across backend services, frontend workflows, database migrations, security controls, AI-assisted analysis, scanner ingestion, and production operations.

• Maintain and extend a FastAPI backend with hundreds of registered API routes.
• Build and refine React/TypeScript product workflows across a large frontend surface.
• Design and maintain SQLAlchemy models, Alembic migrations, PostgreSQL queries, and data integrity rules.
• Support scanner integrations, finding normalization, deduplication, evidence workflows, and compliance mapping.
• Maintain AI-assisted features through a centralized provider abstraction rather than direct calls to providers.
• Work across GRC workflows including findings, evidence, SSPs, POA&Ms, RMF, FedRAMP/FISMA, SCRM, ZTA, ISCM, risk acceptance, and reporting.
• Keep local development and test environments healthy using Docker Compose, Redis, PostgreSQL, worker queues, Ollama, observability services, and frontend tooling.
• Maintain quality gates including linting, type checking, OpenAPI drift checks, migration safety, SDK drift, architecture boundaries, and test suites.
• Debug issues across frontend state, API contracts, database state, workers, scanner output, generated SDKs, and deployment configuration.
• Treat documentation as helpful but secondary to the codebase; validate assumptions against source, tests, migrations, and running behavior.

What You Will Need:

• Minimum of SIX (6) years’ experience with Python backend development.
• Strong FastAPI, Pydantic, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, async Python, and pytest experience.
• Strong React, TypeScript, Vite, React Router, React Query, and component architecture experience.
• PostgreSQL experience, including schema design, migrations, indexes, JSON/JSONB, and relational integrity.
• Experience maintaining large API surfaces and generated frontend API clients.
• Experience with background jobs or async workers using Redis-backed queues.
• Strong security engineering fundamentals: authentication, authorization, RBAC, audit logs, secret handling, dependency risk, and input validation.
• Ability to diagnose source-of-truth issues when documentation, generated code, database schema, and runtime behavior disagree.

Security/GRC Domain Skills To Include

• Vulnerability findings and remediation workflows.
• Evidence collection and evidence sufficiency.
• SSPs, POA&Ms, control mappings, audit packages, and risk acceptance.
• NIST 800-53, RMF, FedRAMP/FISMA, CMMC, SCRM, ZTA, ISCM, and related compliance concepts.
• Scanner output from tools such as cloud security scanners, vulnerability scanners, SAST/IaC tools, secret scanners, identity/M365 scanners, and web security scanners.
• Provenance, auditability, and defensibility requirements for regulated workflows.

AI/LLM Product Skills To Include

• Experience building AI-assisted product features, preferably in security, compliance, document review, or workflow automation.
• Understanding of RAG, embeddings, document extraction, prompt/context design, and evidence citation.
• Ability to enforce scoped context, provenance, guardrails, and human-review boundaries.
• Comfort maintaining provider abstractions across local and cloud AI providers.

Infrastructure And Operations Skills To Include

• Docker Compose for local development.
• AWS-style production operations: containers, managed databases, caches, object storage, CDN, IAM, logs, and deployment pipelines.
• Terraform or similar infrastructure-as-code experience.
• CI/CD debugging and release discipline.
• Observability, logs, health checks, and operational runbooks.

What Would Be Nice To Have:

• Prior experience with GRC, audit automation, security consulting tools, vulnerability management, FedRAMP/FISMA, or SSP/POA&M workflows.
• Experience with generated OpenAPI SDKs.
• Experience producing PDF, Excel, DOCX, PowerPoint, or audit package exports.
• Experience with immutable audit logs, provenance chains, multi-tenant permissions, or evidence workflows.

The annual salary range for this position is $86,500.00-$129,900.00. Compensation decisions depend on a wide range of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, security clearances, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs.

What We Offer:

Guidehouse offers a comprehensive, total rewards package that includes competitive compensation and a flexible benefits package that reflects our commitment to creating a diverse and supportive workplace.

Benefits include:

• Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance

• Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays

• Parental Leave

• 401(k) Retirement Plan

• Group Term Life and Travel Assistance

• Voluntary Life and AD&D Insurance

• Health Savings Account, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts

• Transit and Parking Commuter Benefits

• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability

• Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development, Certifications & Learning Opportunities

• Employee Referral Program

• Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach

• Care.com annual membership

• Employee Assistance Program

• Supplemental Benefits via Corestream (Critical Care, Hospital Indemnity, Accident Insurance, Legal Assistance and ID theft protection, etc.)

• Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus

About Guidehouse

Guidehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer–Protected Veterans, Individuals with Disabilities or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.

Guidehouse will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law or ordinance including the Fair Chance Ordinance of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If you have visited our website for information about employment opportunities, or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Guidehouse Recruiting at 1-571-633-1711 or via email at RecruitingAccommodation@guidehouse.com. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodation.

All communication regarding recruitment for a Guidehouse position will be sent from Guidehouse email domains including @guidehouse.com or guidehouse@myworkday.com. Correspondence received by an applicant from any other domain should be considered unauthorized and will not be honored by Guidehouse. Note that Guidehouse will never charge a fee or require a money transfer at any stage of the recruitment process and does not collect fees from educational institutions for participation in a recruitment event. Never provide your banking information to a third party purporting to need that information to proceed in the hiring process.

If any person or organization demands money related to a job opportunity with Guidehouse, please report the matter to Guidehouse’s Ethics Hotline. If you want to check the validity of correspondence you have received, please contact recruiting@guidehouse.com. Guidehouse is not responsible for losses incurred (monetary or otherwise) from an applicant’s dealings with unauthorized third parties.

Guidehouse does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Guidehouse and Guidehouse will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.