Lead Agentic Software Engineer

MITRE; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 157,000 - 235,000; Full time

Job summary

MITRE is seeking a Lead Agentic Software Engineer to design, build, secure, and operate mission-focused software systems and data platforms. You’ll apply AI-enabled methods, lead enablement, and establish guardrails for responsible use in a multi-domain environment.

You will work on architecture, production-grade systems, and rapid enablement tasks across domains, with a strong emphasis on secure coding, reviews, testing, and compliance.”

Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years’ experience.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and Python proficiency.
• Hands-on experience using agentic/AI-assisted development tools and integrating them into the SDLC.
• Experience designing guardrails for AI-enabled engineering.
• Experience establishing quality/evaluation practices for AI-generated outputs.
• Leadership/enablement skills: mentoring and engineering standards.
• Must have an active Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance; Top Secret eligibility.
• On-site requirement: minimum 3 days a week.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, secure, and operate mission-focused software systems and data platforms.
• Lead enablement: mentor teams and advise stakeholders on agentic adoption.
• Define guardrails, evaluation gates, and compliant AI artifacts.
• Architect and operate distributed cloud systems (AWS/multi-cloud).

Skills

Python proficiency

Agentic AI tools

Code review

Secure coding

Testing automation

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Copilot

Code agents

CI/CD

Job description

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future.

Department Summary:

Do you want to engineer software systems that contribute to solving our nation’s most critical problems? Do you want to work along side engineers, scientists, and domain specialists that are experts in their fields? Are you passionate about best practices for delivering the highest quality software solutions? We're making a difference every day—working for a safer, healthier, and more secure nation and world. At MITRE, you’ll apply your skills and experience to solve tangible, high-impact challenges facing our nation. You’ll contribute to diverse projects in support of our government sponsors while benefiting from meaningful learning and growth opportunities. Our workplace reflects our values: we invest in your development so you can build a long-term career here. Join us for mission-driven work, competitive benefits, exceptional professional development, and a culture of innovation that values flexibility, collaboration, and career growth.

Roles & Responsibilities:

MITRE is seeking a Lead Agentic Software Engineer to design, build, secure, and operate mission-focused software systems and data platforms using state-of-the-art agentic and AI-enabled software development techniques. In this role, you’ll apply modern tools and practices to develop prototypes and field-ready capabilities, advise sponsors on effective adoption, and help establish guidance, best practices, and guardrails for responsible use. You’ll deliver features and technical solutions, shape system architecture and engineering process improvements, and lead both sustained program execution and rapid response mission needs. The applicant should be prepared to work across multiple domain areas and to support a mix of standard program work and urgent, high-impact enablement tasks as organizational priorities evolve. Areas of engagement may include

• Design, develop, test, and deploy mission software and data platforms using agentic/AI-assisted workflows with clear human accountability and review
• Stand up and operate agentic development toolchains (code/test/review agents, copilots, automation bots) integrated into standard engineering practices
• Rapidly prototype mission capabilities with agentic methods and mature them into production-grade systems (security, reliability, scalability, observability)
• Define, implement, and enforce guardrails for agentic engineering (approved tools/models, data handling, secrets, provenance, auditability, safe prompting)
• Establish evaluation and quality gates for AI-generated artifacts (tests, static/security analysis, coding standards, CI checks, acceptance criteria)
• Architect, build, and operate distributed cloud systems (AWS/multi-cloud) using agentic techniques to manage performance, resilience, cost, and troubleshooting
• Design and integrate APIs, backend services, and data flows; build and operate data pipelines and orchestration where applicable
• Automate DevSecOps and CI/CD with AI-aware controls (supply-chain security, dependency/container/IaC scanning, SAST/DAST, policy-as-code) and repeatable releases
• Produce and maintain documentation, runbooks, and compliance-ready evidence for AI-assisted engineering, including observability integrations (e.g., Splunk)
• Lead enablement: mentor teams, advise stakeholders/customers on agentic adoption, develop best practices/playbooks, and drive measurable process improvement

Basic Qualifications:

• Typically requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience. The individual should be able to immediately contribute to this job step.
• Entrepreneurial, innovative, and collaborative spirit and the curiosity to explore and push the boundaries of software development and software solutions
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and Python proficiency, including secure coding, code review, automated testing, and maintainable design patterns
• Hands-on experience using agentic/AI-assisted development tools (e.g., copilot, code agents, test generation, PR review automation) and integrating them into the Software Development Life Cycle
• Experience designing guardrails for AI-enabled engineering (tool/model selection, prompt/context hygiene, secrets handling, provenance, auditability, and policy/compliance constraints)
• Experience establishing quality/evaluation practices for AI-generated outputs (automated checks, unit/integration tests, static/security analysis, and human-in-the-loop review standards)
• Leadership/enablement skills: mentoring, setting engineering standards, and advising stakeholders/customers on responsible adoption and change management
• Must have an active Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Top Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
• This position requires a minimum of 3 days a week on-site.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in a technical discipline (including but not limited to Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, etc.)
• Proven experience building, deploying, and operating LLM/agent systems (e.g., RAG, tool/function calling, orchestration frameworks) in production, including constrained/classified environments
• Strong AI/agent security background, including threat modeling/red-teaming and implementing safety controls (e.g., prompt injection defenses, data loss/exfiltration prevention, least-privilege tool execution, sandboxing/content filtering)
• Mature evaluation and quality practices for LLMs/agents (e.g., golden sets, regression benchmarking, judge models; hallucination/jailbreak resistance and task success metrics)
• Platform engineering/DevSecOps expertise: CI/CD delivery platforms, artifact management, and software supply-chain/provenance controls (e.g., SBOMs, signing/attestation/SLSA, policy-as-code)
• Cloud-native operations depth across Kubernetes and IaC/multi-cloud, with strong observability (tracing/logs/agent telemetry, audit logging/Splunk) and MLOps/model serving (hosting, gatewaying, rate/cost controls, monitoring)
• Experience supporting mission/operational systems and external integrations (mission partners/vendors), including regulated environments (NIST 800-53/RMF, FedRAMP, DoD ILs) and producing audit-ready evidence/artifacts

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):

Secret

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):

Top Secret

Salary compensation range and midpoint:

$156,800 - $196,000 - $235,200 Annual

Work Location Type:

Onsite

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local or international law.

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