Senior Backend API Engineer – Real-Time, Secure Services

General Dynamics Information Technology; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

401K with company match

Comprehensive benefits

Paid time off

Job summary

General Dynamics Information Technology is seeking a Backend API Developer to design, build, and operate the service layer behind an operator application in a national cyber defense environment. You will focus on low-latency delivery, correct behavior under load, and strict entitlement enforcement.

Responsibilities include integrating with upstream services, delivering server-sent events and WebSocket streams, and enforcing authorization with auditable logs.

Qualifications

• Experience building and operating production service interfaces at scale.
• Experience integrating with upstream services and maintaining derived state.
• Knowledge of push/streaming delivery, connection lifecycle, and backpressure.
• Experience with server-side authorization models.
• Experience with containerized deployment and cloud environments.
• Experience instrumenting services and supporting production incidents.
• BS in computer science or engineering with 8+ years of relevant experience.
• Public Trust eligibility and U.S. citizenship.
• On-site work in the Washington, D.C. metro area (not remote or hybrid).

Responsibilities

• Build and operate independently deployable services behind the application.
• Maintain interface contracts, versioning, and backward compatibility.
• Implement consistent request handling, validation, errors, authentication, and authorization.
• Create automated tests for service behavior and contract compliance.
• Integrate with upstream services via REST and streaming interfaces.
• Maintain accurate view state and ensure mid-stream clients receive a complete picture.
• Coordinate payload and interface changes with upstream service owners.
• Deliver updates using server-sent events and WebSocket streams.
• Manage connection lifecycle, authentication, backpressure, reconnection, and catch-up.
• Sustain large numbers of concurrent long-lived connections.
• Enforce role and attribute-based authorization server-side.

Skills

Production services

Upstream integration

Streaming delivery

Server-side authorization

Containerized deployment

Cloud environments

Observability & incidents

Frontend collaboration

Education

BS in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Kafka

MSK

Event Hubs

API gateways

Service meshes

AWS/Azure Functions

Job description

General Dynamics Information Technology is seeking a Backend API Developer to design, build, and operate the service layer behind an operator application in a national cyber defense environment. You will focus on low-latency delivery, correct behavior under load, and strict entitlement enforcement.

Responsibilities include integrating with upstream services, delivering server-sent events and WebSocket streams, and enforcing authorization with auditable logs.