Software Engineer

For the OPS Consulting team, 'the power to help' means helping our clients, helping serve the mission, helping our employees and their families, and helping the community. Headquartered in Hanover, MD. OPS Consulting has over two decades of experience specializing in the most mission-critical operations. We are thought leaders and innovators. The ingenuity of our developers, engineers, cyber experts, linguists, and analysts are dedicated to empowering our clients, fulfilling The Mission, and remaining trusted leaders and advisers in national security and technology solutions.

We are seeking Software Engineers to design, develop, test, deploy, document, maintain, and enhance complex software systems supporting a secure, large-scale, multi-tenant Linux computing environment.

These systems include high-performance compute platforms, distributed data processing pipelines, workflow orchestration services, operational data flows, and full-stack web applications that manage access to enterprise resources. Work may involve processing-intensive analytics, automation tooling, containerized microservices, real-time systems, data repositories, and platform integrations.

Engineers work independently or as part of Agile teams to deliver secure, scalable, and reliable software solutions supporting mission-critical workloads.

Multiple Openings

We are hiring multiple Software Engineers at varying levels (SWE-1 through SWE-4). While all roles operate within the same secure Linux and Kubernetes-based ecosystem, each position has a primary technical focus area.

Engineers are aligned with a single core focus area based on their experience and interests. Candidates are not expected to perform across all areas listed below.

Current focus areas include:

Platform & DevOps Engineering

• Develop automation using Bash and Python
• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code using tools such as Ansible
• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, etc.)
• Improve release management, build reliability, and deployment processes

Data Engineering & Distributed Processing

• Design and optimize data ingress and egress mechanisms
• Develop distributed processing jobs using Apache Spark
• Implement data validation, transformation, and anomaly detection
• Work with structured and semi-structured data formats (Parquet, JSON, CSV, XML)

Workflow Orchestration

• Design and maintain Apache Airflow DAGs
• Implement observable, scalable workflow patterns
• Integrate distributed processing engines and containerized runtimes

Full-Stack & API Development

• Develop web interfaces using JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and modern frameworks (e.g., React)
• Design REST APIs using Python frameworks (e.g., FastAPI)
• Implement secure authentication and authorization integrations
• Develop relational and non-relational database applications

Containerized Application Engineering

• Develop Python-based services
• Integrate with MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and messaging frameworks (e.g., RabbitMQ, Kafka)
• Deploy services using Docker, containerd, Podman, and Kubernetes
• Create and maintain Helm charts

Dataflow Platform Engineering

• Design and administer Apache NiFi data flows
• Create and troubleshoot complex operational data transport pipelines
• Implement secure and compliant data handling practices

Core Responsibilities

• Analyze user requirements to derive software design and performance requirements
• Design and implement new software or enhance existing systems
• Debug and resolve software defects
• Develop and execute test procedures
• Integrate software into new or modified operating environments
• Coordinate software installation and monitor performance to ensure operational specifications are met
• Document system architecture, design decisions, and test results

Requirements:

• US citizenship and an active TS/SCI with polygraph security clearance required
• Strong experience using Linux CLI and tools
• Software development experience in one or more languages such as Python, Java, C/C++, JavaScript, etc.
• Experience with Git source control
• Experience with container technologies (Docker, containerd, Podman)
• Experience with Kubernetes-based deployments
• Experience with shell scripting (Bash)

Qualification Levels:

• SWE 1: 4 years of relevant experience or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 2 years of relevant experience or Master's degree in Computer Science or related discipline.
• SWE 2: 7 years of relevant experience or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 5 years of relevant experience or Master's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 3 years of relevant experience
• SWE 3: 9 years of relevant experience or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 7 years of experience or Master's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 5 years of relevant experience
• SWE 4: 14 years of relevant experience or Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 12 years of experience or Master's degree in Computer Science or related discipline, plus 10 years of relevant experience

Desired Experience:

• CI/CD tools (GitLab CI, Jenkins)
• Infrastructure-as-Code (Ansible)
• Apache Spark
• Apache Airflow
• Apache NiFi
• React or other modern JavaScript frameworks
• FastAPI or similar REST frameworks
• MongoDB and/or PostgreSQL
• Messaging frameworks (RabbitMQ, Kafka)
• Observability tools (Elastic Stack, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk)
• Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence)
• HPC scheduling familiarity (e.g., Slurm)
• Cloud platform familiarity (AWS)
• Understanding of OIDC/OpenID authentication protocols

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