Senior Software Development Engineer Jobs in Washington, DC
Senior Software Development Engineer jobs in Washington are concentrated in the Capitol Hill corridor, the NoMa tech district, and the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor across federal contracting, defense technology, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. Employers hiring right now include Anduril, Microsoft, and The MIL Corporation. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
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Location: Washington, DC 100% Onsite
Clearance: Top Secret/SCI
Job Type: Full-time
Target Salary Range*: $175,000 - $200,000
- This represents the potential salary range for this position depending on education level, years of experience and/or certifications in addition to other position specific requirements which may impact salary
Position Overview
The Data Engineering Software Developer Mid designs, builds, integrates, and maintains scalable data systems and pipelines that support analytics, reporting, and operational insight across complex enterprise environments. This role focuses on ingesting, processing, transforming, and unifying large and disparate data sources while ensuring data quality, security, performance, and compliance with DoD and DISA requirements.
The Data Engineering Software Developer Mid develops solutions using Confluent Kafka, Elastic Stack, AWS, Red Hat OpenShift/Kubernetes, data warehouses, and data lakes. The position also supports automation, CI/CD, platform optimization, visualization capabilities, and collaboration across software, data, analytics, and network operations teams.
Key Responsibilities
Data Pipeline Development and Integration
- Design, build, and maintain scalable and reliable data systems and pipelines to ingest, process, and transform large, complex, and disparate data sources for analytics and reporting.
- Unify and integrate data from multiple network operations systems into a consistent and accessible platform.
- Develop and maintain ETL/ELT processes supporting data ingestion, transformation, validation, and cleansing.
- Create and maintain Kafka, Elastic, and Logstash pipelines supporting enterprise data processing requirements.
- Automate data-related processing and monitoring activities.
Data Platforms and Software Development
- Implement data solutions using Confluent Kafka, Elastic Stack, AWS, and Red Hat OpenShift/Kubernetes.
- Develop and manage data warehouses and data lakes supporting analytics, reporting, and operational dashboards.
- Develop data-engineering capabilities using Python, Java, SQL, shell scripting, and related technologies.
- Support Kibana visualizations and dashboards using React, JavaScript, and HTML.
- Apply software engineering and automation practices to improve the maintainability and scalability of data solutions.
Performance and Platform Optimization
- Analyze and optimize data-ingestion throughput, query performance, indexing strategies, and storage efficiency across Elastic and Kafka platforms.
- Optimize infrastructure for performance, scalability, reliability, and cost effectiveness.
- Troubleshoot and resolve issues related to data ingestion, processing, storage, memory utilization, partitioning, and cluster performance.
- Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks affecting data availability and downstream analytics.
Security, Compliance, and DevOps
- Ensure data quality, accuracy, security, and compliance with applicable DoD and DISA requirements.
- Apply appropriate data security and access-control practices.
- Support CI/CD pipelines for automated build, test, and deployment activities.
- Apply version control and DevOps practices to data engineering and software development workflows.
Collaboration and Documentation
- Collaborate with data analysts, visualization engineers, software developers, and other stakeholders to deliver integrated and actionable data solutions.
- Document data architecture, integration patterns, configurations, and operational procedures.
- Develop and maintain technical documentation and runbooks supporting data platforms, pipelines, and applications.
Qualifications
Education
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline with 4-7 years of relevant experience. [Required]
Experience
- Hands-on experience designing, building, and maintaining ETL/ELT data pipelines and integrating multiple disparate data sources. [Required]
- Experience with data warehouse and/or data lake technologies such as AWS Redshift, Amazon S3, Hadoop, Snowflake, or similar platforms. [Required]
- Experience with Elastic Stack, including Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, and/or Kafka for data ingestion and processing. [Required]
- Experience with Linux/UNIX system administration and automation. [Required]
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, containerized pipelines, version control technologies such as Git and Bitbucket, and DevOps practices. [Required]
- Familiarity with network operations data, including logs, metrics, events, ticketing, CMDB data, and related data models.
Skills
- Proficiency with data engineering and software development technologies and languages such as Python, Java, SQL, and shell scripting. [Required]
- Knowledge of data security, access controls, and compliance frameworks, including DoD, DISA, RMF, and STIG requirements. [Required]
- Strong communication and documentation skills supporting collaboration and knowledge sharing. [Required]
Certifications
Current Security+ certification or higher/equivalent certification. [Required]
Clearance
Active TS/SCI security clearance. [Required]
Other Requirements
Willingness and ability to complete and maintain additional customer suitability screenings throughout employment. [Required]
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting DISA, DISN, or other DoD network environments.
- Experience developing and deploying software applications that meet DoD security standards, including applicable STIGs.
- Knowledge of network security, encryption, and access controls within classified environments.
- Experience with big data technologies and platforms such as Kafka, Spark, NiFi, Hadoop, Elasticsearch, Logstash, Databricks, and ELK Stack.
- Experience applying big data technologies to text mining, summarization, search, and entity extraction.
- Experience with cloud-based data platforms, including AWS, Azure, GCP, or AWS GovCloud.
- Experience with cloud-integrated platforms and Infrastructure as Code, including networking and security policies.
- Familiarity with Kubernetes deployment, platform upgrades, and patching.
- Experience with configuration management technologies such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef.
- Experience with monitoring, alerting, and observability technologies such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Elastic.
- Experience with business intelligence and visualization tools such as Kibana.
- Experience developing and maintaining technical documentation and operational runbooks.
- Strong understanding and practical experience with Agile methodologies, including Scrum and SAFe.
- Experience with Atlassian Jira and Confluence.
- Confluent Developer certification.
- Elastic Certified Engineer certification.
- Experience working remotely with geographically dispersed teams and within matrixed organizations.
- Experience combining software development, integration, and data engineering practices.
- Experience applying knowledge of system architecture, networking, and centralized logging using ELK to support data transformation initiatives.
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Senior Software Development Engineer Jobs in Washington: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a senior software development engineer job in Washington?
Washington's hiring for senior software development engineers is dominated by federal contractors, defense agencies, and cybersecurity firms, so candidates with security clearances or clearance eligibility have a meaningful edge in this market. Focus your search on the NoMa district, the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in nearby Arlington, and the Capitol Riverfront area. Demonstrating experience with cloud platforms, DevSecOps pipelines, or government compliance frameworks like FedRAMP positions you ahead of the field here.
Which companies hire senior software development engineers in Washington?
Washington senior software development engineer roles are posted by Anduril, Microsoft, and The MIL Corporation and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. Washington's employer mix skews heavily toward federal contractors, defense technology firms, and agencies with in-house engineering teams, giving candidates a broad range of mission-driven and commercially focused opportunities within the city.
Are there remote senior software development engineer jobs in Washington?
Yes, senior software development engineer work is generally well-suited to remote and hybrid arrangements, though roles tied to federal contracts or classified work often require on-site presence. About 85% of senior software development engineer openings tied to Washington are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, with the most flexibility typically found in commercial software and cloud engineering roles rather than defense or intelligence-adjacent positions.
How can I get a senior software development engineer job in Washington with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in Washington is through federal contractor internship pipelines and agency-affiliated apprenticeship programs, where junior engineers can build clearance-eligible experience early. Local employers in cybersecurity startups and civic-tech organizations around the NoMa and Georgetown tech communities frequently hire associate software engineers and promote from within. Building proficiency in Java, Python, or cloud infrastructure and contributing to open-source or government-adjacent projects strengthens your candidacy for Washington's mission-focused roles.
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