Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. FTI Defense is a company delivering mission-focused solutions to the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community. They are seeking a Distinguished AI Software Engineering Lead to provide technical vision and architectural oversight while contributing directly to the design and development of secure, scalable, and modernized solutions.
Responsibilities
- Architect and deploy secure, distributed platforms supporting modular, multi-service software environments
- Design and integrate APIs, microservices, and data pipelines that enable interoperability across mission, simulation, and analytical systems
- Define and enforce architectural principles, modularity standards, and software best practices across development teams
- Engineer solutions that bridge cloud, on-prem, and classified enclaves, ensuring interoperability and compliance
- Engineer cloud-native solutions in AWS GovCloud or hybrid IL4–IL6 environments with strict security and accreditation requirements
- Implement Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or CDK) to automate provisioning, configuration, and accreditation workflows
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that embed security, compliance, and automated testing from development through deployment
- Ensure all platform designs support zero-trust principles, multi-enclave deployment, and repeatable accreditation (ATO) processes
- Design or oversee large-scale data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration environments (Kafka, Airflow, Spark, or Databricks)
- Shape data architectures that balance throughput, latency, and cost across distributed mission environments
- Enable secure and efficient data access and synchronization across analytical, AI-enabled, and simulation workloads
- Transition software and platforms from prototype to production, ensuring maintainability, observability, and configuration consistency
- Establish automated testing, release governance, and performance monitoring standards for ongoing sustainment
- Partner with program and product leadership to align delivery with mission lifecycle requirements
- Engineer architectures for redundancy and resilience under degraded or disconnected operational conditions
- Design and maintain secure enclave architectures, boundary controls, and cross-domain integration solutions
- Collaborate with cybersecurity and ISSM teams to support ATO and ongoing accreditation automation
- Integrate emerging technologies, open standards, and modern frameworks into operational systems
- Collaborate with AI/ML, data, and simulation teams to enable model integration and inference services within production software (familiarity with MLOps concepts preferred)
- Evaluate new tools and frameworks to improve developer productivity, performance, and automation efficiency
- Lead by example as a hands-on technical authority, guiding design and implementation decisions
- Mentor software engineers and architects to raise technical standards, code quality, and architectural maturity
- Partner with fellow Distinguished Engineers and organizational leaders to align platform strategy with enterprise innovation goals
- Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both executive and engineering stakeholders
Skills
- Active Secret clearance required; TS/SCI strongly preferred
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field
- 10–15 years of progressive software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a technical leadership or architecture role
- Proven success architecting and deploying secure, distributed, cloud-native software platforms
- Deep experience with AWS GovCloud or IL4–IL6 hybrid environments
- Hands-on proficiency with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or CDK) and CI/CD automation
- Strong understanding of DevSecOps, zero-trust principles, and mission accreditation (ATO/RMF) processes
- Demonstrated ability to operationalize software systems from prototype through accreditation in secure environments
- Strong coding experience in one or more core languages (Python, Java, C++, TypeScript)
- Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field
- Experience developing developer-facing APIs, SDKs, or enablement platforms for enterprise-scale interoperability
- Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, or Rancher)
- Awareness of MLOps and AI solution integration practices — capable of collaborating with AI/ML teams on model deployment and sustainment
- Proven ability to mentor engineers and influence enterprise-level software design decisions
- Recognized for contributions advancing automation, performance, and platform modernization within secure environments
- Comfortable balancing architecture, coding, and stakeholder engagement in fast-paced mission contexts
Company Overview