Lead Software Architect — Secure, Data-Driven Defense Systems

Parsons; Florida; On-site; USD 148,000 - 267,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental and vision

Paid time off

401(k) plan

Life insurance

Flexible work schedules

Holiday pay

Job summary

Parsons is seeking a Lead Software Solutions Architect to design secure, data‑intensive mission systems for defense and intelligence missions. You will translate mission needs into scalable architectures and deployable capabilities, guiding teams across engineering, data, and stakeholders.

The ideal candidate is hands-on in distributed systems with strong expertise in real-time data, TAK ecosystem, and secure, multi-domain deployments. Applicants must be U.S.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 15+ years in software engineering or related leadership roles.
• Experience delivering software solutions for multi-domain defense or mission-critical environments.
• Hands-on with distributed systems, microservices, and real-time data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Define end-to-end architectures for secure, distributed mission applications.
• Lead technical design, data models, interfaces, and implementation approaches.
• Architect integrations across systems using APIs, messaging, and data services.
• Act as SAFe Systems Engineering Product Owner Analyst supporting agile delivery.
• Advise on software design decisions, technology selection, and mission alignment.
• Participate in PI planning, architecture reviews, and technical interchanges.
• Design for reliability, cybersecurity, and operation in limited-bandwidth environments.
• Promote DevSecOps, automation, observability, and secure software supply chains.
• Present technical approaches during customer engagements and reviews.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Real-time data pipelines

TAK ecosystem experience

APIs & microservices design

Software architecture leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Apache Kafka

TAK Server / WebTAK / ATAK

Docker

Kubernetes

JSON / Cursor on Target formats

S3-compatible storage (MinIO / AWS S3)

gRPC / TCP/IP

Job description

Parsons is seeking a Lead Software Solutions Architect to design secure, data‑intensive mission systems for defense and intelligence missions. You will translate mission needs into scalable architectures and deployable capabilities, guiding teams across engineering, data, and stakeholders.

The ideal candidate is hands-on in distributed systems with strong expertise in real-time data, TAK ecosystem, and secure, multi-domain deployments. Applicants must be U.S.