Software Architect

Software Architect 

In this role you will lead the architecture, technical evolution, and operational design of a large-scale, globally distributed mission platform deployed across multiple countries and managed remotely from the United States.

This platform supports real-time transaction processing, distributed data management, integration with external government and commercial systems, peripheral/device orchestration, and centralized observability and administration.

The successful candidate will be the overall software architecture authority for a modern Linux-based platform composed of approximately 25 core microservices and a broad set of supporting/integration services. The environment is cloud-heavy, distributed, operationally critical, and deployed in both constrained edge settings and larger centralized/cloud environments.

This role requires someone who can define and govern architecture while remaining grounded in the realities of runtime operations, resilience, fieldability, and maintainability.

What You'll Be Doing: 

• Own the overall software architecture for a distributed microservices platform running across global environments
  
• Maintain and evolve an ecosystem of approximately:
  
  
  
  • 25 core Java-based microservices
    
  • a comparable set of supporting and integration services
    
  
  
• Define and govern architecture across:
  
  
  
  • service boundaries and contracts
    
  • data flows and event patterns
    
  • control plane and backplane behavior
    
  • node roles and deployment topologies
    
  • observability, fault tolerance, and service recovery
    
  
  
• Lead architecture for a platform based on:
  
  
  
  • RHEL / Rocky Linux
    
  • Java (JDK 21+)
    
  • Vue.js 3 frontends
    
  • MongoDB for persistent data
    
  • Elasticsearch / Logstash and RabbitMQ for ephemeral/search/event data flows
    
  • Consul, Nomad, and Vault for service discovery, orchestration, and secrets management
    
  
  
• Architect deployment patterns for multiple node types, including:
  
  
  
  • server nodes
    
  • data nodes
    
  • arbiter nodes
    
  • workstation/user-facing nodes
    
  
  
• Guide the technical design of core operational services responsible for:
  
  
  
  • transactional processing
    
  • rules/screening/correlation workflows
    
  • authorization and access control
    
  • reference/master data management
    
  • language/internationalization support
    
  • health/status services
    
  • biometric or matching-oriented services built on open-source components
    
  
  
• Oversee architecture for peripheral/device services supporting integration with a broad set of external devices and sensors
  
• Lead integration architecture for external standards-based and partner system interfaces, including:
  
  
  
  • third-party government systems
    
  • commercial travel/identity/manifest-style systems
    
  • country/customer-specific extensions
    
  
  
• Ensure the platform remains remotely observable, supportable, and maintainable across all deployments
  
• Partner with cloud, network, security, data, field engineering, and operations teams to align architecture with deployment realities
  
• Review and guide software design decisions, technical debt reduction, modernization priorities, and roadmap sequencing
  
• Serve as a senior technical authority in design reviews, readiness reviews, problem resolution, and major incident analysis
  

What Required Skills You'll Bring: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field. 4 Additional years of experience can substitute for a degree.
  
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time in software architecture roles for distributed or mission-critical systems
  
• 5+ years architecting microservices-based platforms in production
  
• Demonstrated ability to serve as the technical authority over a multi-service software ecosystem
  
• Experience guiding multiple development teams and reviewing architecture across service boundaries
  
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to produce design artifacts and present architecture decisions clearly
  
• Experience balancing long-term architecture quality with delivery constraints and operational realities
  
• Deep hands-on expertise with:
  
  
  
  • Java on modern JDKs, preferably JDK 21+
    
  • Linux-based production environments, preferably RHEL / Rocky Linux
    
  • distributed service design and operational patterns
    
  
  
• Strong experience with:
  
  
  
  • MongoDB
    
  • Elasticsearch / Logstash
    
  • RabbitMQ or equivalent event/messaging platforms
    
  • service discovery/orchestration/secrets technologies such as Consul, Nomad, Vault, Kubernetes, or similar
    
  
  
• Experience designing systems that operate across:
  
  
  
  • constrained edge environments
    
  • centralized or cloud-heavy environments
    
  • globally distributed deployments with intermittent or variable connectivity
    
  
  
• Proven ability to architect for:
  
  
  
  • resilience and graceful degradation
    
  • observability and diagnosability
    
  • secure service-to-service communication
    
  • multi-role user administration and authorization
    
  • remote support and lifecycle management
    
  
  
• TS/SCI minimum clearance required.
  
• Domestic and/or international project travel may be required.
  

What Desired Skills You'll Bring: 

• Master’s degree in Data Engineering, Computer Science, Analytics, or related field
  
• Experience with Vue.js 3 and modern frontend architecture patterns for administrative or operational interfaces
  
• Experience with hybrid cloud and cloud-heavy deployments where backend services are centralized and edge nodes are thin
  
• Experience integrating with external standards-based government, identity, travel, or partner ecosystems
  
• Experience designing platforms that manage or integrate with peripherals/devices such as scanners, readers, imaging devices, kiosks, or other edge hardware
  
• Experience with Nomad/Consul/Vault specifically in production
  
• Experience architecting systems with zero/low downtime upgrade paths
  
• Experience with semantic, cognitive, or advanced search use cases on Elasticsearch
  
• Familiarity with event replay, reconciliation, and offline-sync patterns
  
• Experience working closely with field engineering or remote deployment teams
  
• Experience with large-scale modernization of legacy monoliths to service-oriented or microservices-based platforms
  
•  
  
• Familiarity with open-source biometric, matching, search, or image processing components
  
• Experience with multilingual/internationalized systems deployed across multiple countries or regions
  
• Experience supporting operational analytics/reporting services built on transaction/event data
  
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and release discipline for multi-service distributed systems
  

Security Clearance Requirement:

An active Top Secret SCI security clearance is required for this position.