Software Engineer Jobs in District of Columbia
Software Engineer jobs in District of Columbia are among the most active in the country, concentrated in federal technology contracting, cybersecurity, defense, and policy-driven tech across the metro area from entry-level to principal engineer. The heaviest hiring is centered in Washington DC proper, with spillover into nearby Northern Virginia corridors, where Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, and SAIC maintain large software engineering workforces. The most in-demand specializations are cloud infrastructure, full-stack development, and security engineering tied to government contract requirements. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
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Showing 5 of 47+ Software Engineer jobs
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.
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.
See All 47 Software Engineer Jobs in District of Columbia
Find roles in District of Columbia that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Software Engineer JobsSoftware Engineer Jobs by City in District of Columbia
Where District of Columbia roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Software Engineer Job Market in District of Columbia
A snapshot from current District of Columbia openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
What District of Columbia Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in software engineer jobs across District of Columbia.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical field
- Active or eligibility for federal security clearance preferred by many DC-area employers
- Proficiency in at least one modern programming language such as Java, Python, or Go
- Experience with cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud environments
- Familiarity with Agile development methodologies and version control systems like Git
- Strong communication skills for cross-functional collaboration with technical and non-technical stakeholders
Software Engineer Jobs in District of Columbia: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a software engineer in District of Columbia?
Software engineering in District of Columbia does not require a state-issued license, so the path runs through education and credentials rather than a licensing board. Most DC-area employers, particularly federal contractors, expect a bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field. Candidates pursuing roles with federal agencies or contractors should also look into obtaining a security clearance, which many DC employers treat as a practical prerequisite for advancement.
How much do software engineers make in District of Columbia?
Software engineers in District of Columbia earn a median of about $136,880 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $85,140 for the lowest 10% to over $197,000 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire software engineers in District of Columbia?
Companies currently hiring software engineers in District of Columbia include Microsoft, Anduril, and The Amatriot, per current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. The DC market is especially deep in federal IT contracting firms, defense technology companies, and government agency tech teams that maintain steady, long-term software engineering headcount.
Which District of Columbia cities have the most software engineer jobs?
The cities with the most software engineer openings in District of Columbia are Washington and Washington Navy Yard. Washington DC anchors the market as the seat of federal government and home to the agencies and contractors that drive demand, while surrounding areas in the broader metro benefit from the overflow of large defense and technology firms with campuses just outside the district.
Are there remote software engineer jobs in District of Columbia?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 69% of software engineer openings tied to District of Columbia are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, reflecting the desk-based and collaborative nature of software development work. Roles that do not involve classified systems or sensitive government facilities tend to offer the most remote flexibility, while positions tied to federal contracts with security requirements are more likely to require on-site presence.
How can I get hired as a software engineer in District of Columbia with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in DC is through federal contractor internship and associate programs, where firms like Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC regularly recruit new graduates into junior developer and analyst roles. Building a portfolio of personal or open-source projects and earning a cloud certification strengthens candidacy significantly. Adjacent roles such as IT analyst, systems administrator, or QA tester at DC-area agencies are also common stepping stones into full software engineering positions.
Where can I find and apply to software engineer jobs in District of Columbia?
You can find and apply to software engineer jobs in District of Columbia on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings across the DC market. Search the listings to find roles that match your background and apply directly to the ones that fit. No profile creation is needed to see and apply to the openings available right now.
See All 47 Software Engineer Jobs in District of Columbia
Find roles in District of Columbia that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
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