Cloud Software Engineer (TS/SCI w/ Poly)

The AV PRIME program is seeking a Cloud Software Engineer with strong experience in Python, microservices, cloud development, and user-interface technologies. This engineer will join a small, high-impact software team responsible for taking ideas from concept to working prototypes through rapid, iterative development cycles.

The successful candidate will be a hands-on engineer who enjoys solving complex problems in distributed systems and building scalable, data-intensive capabilities that support mission-critical applications. This role offers the opportunity to have a meaningful impact on how the organization operates.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, maintain, and enhance complex software systems based on documented requirements.
• Design and implement user-interface features using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies such as Grafana and Kibana.
• Implement services and data pipelines using AWS data lake and big-data technologies.
• Build and evolve microservices-based architectures, including service boundaries, APIs, and inter-service communication patterns using AWS serverless technologies.
• Apply sound software design and development practices to build, integrate, and execute simulations in development and test environments.
• Contribute to system and software architecture decisions, including hardware/software trade-offs, software-reuse strategies, and the effective use of COTS, government off-the-shelf (GOTS), and custom-developed components.
• Perform requirements analysis and decompose system-level requirements into service- and module-level requirements.
• Implement and consume RESTful APIs to integrate back-end services with other systems and client applications.
• Containerize services using technologies such as Podman and Docker, and deploy them to orchestrated environments such as Kubernetes.
• Diagnose and resolve complex distributed-system issues, including performance bottlenecks, latency, and scalability challenges.
• Perform performance analysis and tuning to improve system responsiveness, reliability, and scalability.
• Collaborate with team members and stakeholders to refine requirements, estimate work, and deliver incremental value.
• Participate in design and code reviews, testing, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement of engineering practices.
• Work independently when required, demonstrating ownership, follow-through, sound judgment, and clear communication.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, physics, or a related technical discipline, or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
• A minimum of 14 years of relevant experience in software engineering, software modernization, solution architecture, or a related field.
• An active TS/SCI with polygraph, * Strong Python development skills, particularly for back-end and service-layer implementations.
• Experience designing and developing user interfaces using COTS technologies such as Grafana and Kibana.
• Experience developing and consuming RESTful services and APIs.
• Hands-on experience building and deploying containers using Podman, Docker, or similar technologies.
• Experience with container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes.
• Experience deploying and operating applications in cloud environments, including AWS, or on hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI).
• Experience in at least two of the following areas:
• Data-processing paradigms: machine-learning workflows, streaming-data processing, and/or batch-processing pipelines.
• Data stores: MongoDB, ArangoDB, Redis, PostgreSQL, or similar technologies, including data modeling, performance tuning, and operations.

Desired Skills and Experience

• Experience with infrastructure-provisioning frameworks such as Terraform or AWS CloudFormation.
• Familiarity with observability practices and tools for distributed systems, including logging, metrics, and distributed tracing.
• Experience working in Agile, DevSecOps, or other iterative software-development environments.
• Experience with modern JavaScript frameworks such as React or Vue.js for developing rich, responsive user interfaces.
• Experience with AWS serverless technologies and cloud-native application architectures.
• Experience designing and operating data-intensive or mission-critical distributed systems.

Salary Range: $125,000 - $270,000

The pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Determination of official compensation or salary relies on several factors including, but not limited to, level of position, job responsibilities, geographic location, scope of relevant work experience, educational background, certifications, contract-specific affordability, organizational requirements, alignment with local internal equity as well as alignment with market data.

Our compensation package also includes components designed to support employees’ total well-being, which should be considered when evaluating our competitive benefits package. These benefits include health insurance, life insurance, disability, company holiday and paid time off, parental leave, 401(k) company match and contributions, professional development/training reimbursements, and other work/life programs.

Based in California, AeroVironment (AVAV) is a global leader in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and tactical missile systems. Founded in 1971 by celebrated physicist and engineer, Dr. Paul MacCready, we’ve been at the leading edge of technical innovation for more than 45 years. Be a part of the team that developed the world’s most widely used military drones and created the first submarine-launched reconnaissance drone, and has seven innovative vehicles that are part of the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection in Washington, DC.

Join us today in developing the next generation of small UAS and tactical missile systems that will deliver more actionable intelligence to our customers so they can proceed with certainty - and succeed.

What We Do

Building on a history of technological innovation, AeroVironment designs, develops, produces, and supports an advanced portfolio of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and tactical missile systems. Agencies of the U.S. Department of Defense and allied military services use the company’s hand-launched UAS to provide situational awareness to tactical operating units through real-time, airborne reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition.