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# Lead Principal Software Engineer - TS/SCI

- **Company:** The Fountain Group
- **Location:** Washington, DC, United States
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $187,200.0 - $208,000.0
- **Contract:** Temporary contract
- **Skills:** Amazon Web Services, Cloud Engineering, Distributed Systems, Python (Programming Language), OpenShift, Ansible, Prometheus, Software Engineering, TypeScript, Datadog, Istio, Grafana, Kubernetes, Infrastructure Automation Frameworks, Rancher, Apache Kafka, Linkerd (Service Mesh), Front End Software Development, Terraform
- **Published:** September 6, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.thefountaingroup.com/job/15415/lead_principal_software_engineer_tssci#apply-now-header

## About the Role

Top Secret/SCI with Active Full Scope Polygraph - must be active prior to start
Bachelor's degree preferred, equivalent experience may be substituted.
8+ years of software engineering experience, with majority in cloud-native, Kubernetes-based, or distributed systems contexts., * Active TS/SCI clearance with Full Scope Polygraph - must be active prior to start

 * Deep experience coding in Go and/or Python in cloud-native contexts
 * Strong Kubernetes expertise: CRDs, Helm, GitOps, multi-tenant deployments
 * Experience with event-driven or agent-based systems (Kafka, controller patterns)
 * Familiarity with infrastructure automation (Terraform, Ansible)
 * Demonstrated end-to-end system component delivery ownership
 * Proven mentorship and technical leadership capability
 * Comfortable balancing automation with operator oversight in classified environments

Desired Skills

 * TypeScript for frontend or tooling development
 * OpenShift or Rancher Government Solutions in air-gapped deployments
 * Service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd)
 * Observability tooling: Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry
 * AWS GovCloud, C2S/SC2S classified cloud experience
 * Cross-domain solution (CDS) experience
 * DoD 8140 IASAE Level II or III (CASP+, CISSP)

## Description

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to support a mission-critical program within the Intelligence Community. This is an on-site SCIF position requiring a TS/SCI clearance with an active Full Scope Polygraph prior to consideration.


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