Data Engineering Software Developer

Leidos LLC; Washington; Hybrid; USD 117,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos' Digital Sector is standing up a new Agile development team to modernize federal IT, building scalable data platforms at a secure Washington, DC facility. The role blends design, development, and integration across Kafka, Elastic, AWS, and Red Hat OpenShift to deliver mission-critical analytics.

Candidates should hold an active TS/SCI clearance and Security+ or higher, with 8+ years of experience in data engineering, ETL/ELT pipelines, and cloud-based data systems.

Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance required.
• Experience designing, building and maintaining data pipelines (ETL/ELT).
• Proficiency with Python, Java, SQL, and shell scripting.
• Experience with Elastic Stack and Kafka for data ingestion.
• Linux/UNIX system administration and automation.
• Knowledge of DoD, DISA, RMF/STIG security frameworks.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Designs, builds, and maintains scalable data systems and pipelines.
• Integrates data from multiple network operations systems into a unified platform.
• Implements pipelines using Kafka, Elastic Stack, AWS, and OpenShift; supports dashboards.
• Develops data warehouses and data lakes for analytics and reporting.
• Optimizes ingestion throughput, query performance, and storage efficiency.
• Automates ETL/ELT, data validation, monitoring, and CI/CD.
• Collaborates with analysts and visualization engineers; documents architecture.
• Troubleshoots data ingestion and platform performance issues.

Skills

TS/SCI clearance

Data pipelines design

Python/Java/SQL

Linux/UNIX

CI/CD & DevOps

Communication & documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical discipline

Tools

Elastic Stack

Kafka

AWS

OpenShift/Kubernetes

Git/Bitbucket

React/JavaScript/HTML

Job description

Join Leidos' Digital Sector as we stand up a brand-new Agile development team at the forefront of federal IT modernization, delivering real digital transformation where it matters most. This is a rare ground-floor opportunity to architect, build, and integrate cutting-edge infrastructure solutions in support of some of our nation's most sensitive and critical missions.

What to expect

• Early-stage flexibility with partial telework during initial development phases
• Full-time on-site presence at secure facility in Washington, DC will be required as the program matures
• A collaborative, Agile environment where your input shapes the architecture from day one
• Dev platform based on ServiceNow, Elastic, Kafka, AWS and RedHat

What you'll need

• An active TS/SCI clearance (required for consideration)
• Willingness to complete and maintain additional customer suitability screenings throughout employment
• Current Security+ certification or higher/equivalent

Primary Responsibilities

• Designs, builds, and maintains scalable, reliable data systems and pipelines to ingest, process, and transform large, complex, and disparate data sources for analytics and reporting.
• Unifies and integrates data from multiple network operations systems into a consistent, accessible platform, ensuring data quality, accuracy, security, and compliance with DoD and DISA requirements.
• Implements solutions using Confluent Kafka, Elastic Stack, AWS, and Red Hat OpenShift (Kubernetes), including creating Kafka, Elastic, and Logstash pipelines and supporting Kibana visualizations and dashboards with React, JavaScript, and HTML.
• Develops and manages data warehouses and data lakes to support analytics, reporting, and operational dashboards, optimizing infrastructure for performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness through automation and best practices.
• Continually analyze and optimize ingestion throughput, query performance, indexing strategies, and storage efficiency across Elastic and Kafka platforms.
• Automates data-related tasks such as ETL/ELT processes, data validation, cleansing, monitoring, and supports CI/CD pipelines for automated build, test, and deployment.
• Collaborates with data analysts, visualization engineers, and other stakeholders to deliver integrated, actionable data solutions, and documents data architecture, integration patterns, and operational procedures.
• Troubleshoots and resolves issues related to data ingestion, processing, and platform performance, storage, memory, partitioning, and cluster performance.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical discipline and 8+ years of relevant experience.
• An active TS/SCI clearance
• Willingness to complete and maintain additional customer suitability screenings throughout employment
• Current Security+ certification or higher/equivalent
• Hands‑on experience designing, building, and maintaining data pipelines (ETL/ELT) and integrating multiple, disparate data sources.
• Experience with data warehouse and/or data lake technologies (e.g., AWS Redshift, S3, Hadoop, Snowflake, or similar).
• Proficiency with data engineering tools and languages such as Python, Java, SQL, and shell scripting.
• Experience with Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) and/or Kafka for data ingestion and processing.
• Familiarity with network operations data (logs, metrics, events, ticketing, CMDB) and related data models.
• Experience with Linux/UNIX system administration and automation.
• Knowledge of data security, access controls, and compliance frameworks (DoD, DISA, RMF, STIGs).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, containerized pipelines, version control (Git, Bitbucket), and DevOps practices.
• Strong communication and documentation skills for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with DISA, DISN, or other DoD network environments, including developing and deploying software applications that meet DoD security standards (e.g., STIGs), and knowledge of network security, encryption, and access controls in classified environments.
• Experience with big data technologies and platforms such as Kafka, Spark, NiFi, Hadoop, Elasticsearch, Logstash, Databricks, and ELK Stack for text mining, summarization, search, and entity extraction.
• Experience with cloud-based data platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, AWS GovCloud), cloud-integrated platforms, and infrastructure as code, including networking and security policies.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes deployment, platform upgrades, patching, configuration management tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef), and monitoring, alerting, and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic).
• Experience with BI tools like Kibana and developing and maintaining technical documentation and runbooks.
• Strong understanding and practical experience with Agile methodologies (Scrum, SAFe), and related tools such as Atlassian JIRA and Confluence.
• Certified Confluent Developer and Certified Elastic Engineer.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience working remotely with geographically dispersed teams and within a matrixed organization to combine software, integration, and data engineering practices.
• Apply knowledge of system architecture, networks, and centralized logging (ELK) to support data transformation initiatives.

Original Posting

September 23, 2026

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range

• $107,900.00 - $195,050.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

Leidos Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $17.2 billion for the fiscal year ended January 2, 2026. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement.

More details are available here.

Securing Your Data

Leidos will never ask you to provide payment-related information at any part of the employment application process. And Leidos will communicate with you only through emails that are sent from a Leidos.com email address. If you receive an email purporting to be from Leidos that asks for payment-related information or any other personal information, please report the email to [e-mail].

Commitment and Diversity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.