Staff Engineer

Raft; Tacoma (WA); Remote; USD 160,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare coverage

401(k) plan with company match

PTO + 11 holidays

Education & training benefits

Tech gadget budget

Job summary

Raft is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead architecture and deliver a real-time data platform for DoD customers. You will own complex problem solving, guide engineers, and shape technical direction in a high‑impact environment.

You will work with technologies like Kafka, Pinot, and Kubernetes, while ensuring low-latency processing of massive event streams and secure, compliant data handling across cloud-native stacks.

Qualifications

• Five+ years of hands-on industry experience in engineering
• Experience building fault-tolerant data-intensive platforms with streaming tech (Kafka/Pinot/Flink)
• Cloud-native deployment and data management practices

Responsibilities

• Lead high‑level architecture designs and critical decisions
• Mentor engineers and drive technical excellence across teams

Skills

5+ years experience

Software architecture

Cloud-native

Security awareness

Tools

Kafka

Pinot

Flink

PostgreSQL

MySQL

MongoDB

Elasticsearch

Kubernetes

Maven

Gradle

NPM

Prometheus

Grafana

Fluentbit

Kibana

Loki

Istio

Helm

Job description

This is a U.S. based position. All of the programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S.

Who we are:

Raft (https://TeamRaft.com) is a customer-obsessed non-traditional defense tech company dedicated to empowering U.S. military and government agencies with cutting‑edge AI/ML and data solutions. We are a leader in autonomous data fusion and Agentic AI, with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development. With headquarters in McLean, VA, our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting‑edge tech stack, and cloud‑native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.

We're looking for an experienced Staff Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high‑impact problem solvers.

About the role:

As a Staff Engineer, you are a beacon of knowledge and a go‑to person for complex challenges. Your role is pivotal in decision‑making processes, high‑level architecture designs, and setting the course for technical excellence within teams. You're expected to think critically, solve intricate problems, and mentor Senior and below Engineers.

Raft is building a real‑time data platform for the Department of Defense (DoD), aimed at enhancing operators' awareness of critical events, including instances like the Chinese balloon and Cessna over the White House incidents. Central to this data platform is the aggregation of real‑time data from over 750 sensors. This data is subsequently enriched, rendered queryable, and ultimately presented as a common operational picture to empower operators in making time critical and pertinent decisions. Our system efficiently handles the processing of over a billion events daily, all achieved with millisecond‑level latency. Key technologies include Kafka, Kafka Streams, Pinot, Java, Scala, and Kubernetes. Your involvement in this role will encompass hands‑on collaboration with a team of accomplished individuals, collectively striving towards excellence.

What we are looking for:

• Five plus years of relevant hands‑on industry experience
• In‑depth experience with building and managing fault‑tolerant, data‑intensive platforms using popular streaming technologies such as Kafka, Pinot, or Flink
• Experience with large‑scale relational and non‑relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch to handle low‑latency requirements
• Working experience in data management including ETL processing, data governance, and data storage
• Experience with building and releasing software in cloud‑native environments
• Experience using a variety of package managers/dependency managers including Maven, Gradle, and NPM
• Deep knowledge of software design and architecture patterns
• Obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment with Raft

Highly preferred:

• Experience with Kubernetes
• Experience with monitoring (i.e. Prometheus, Grafana) and logging (i.e. Fluentbit, Kibana, Loki) solutions in cloud‑native environments
• Solid understanding of Helm Charts
• Experience or knowledge of service mesh technologies, such as Istio
• Experience with supporting enterprise Cloud applications or infrastructure
• Experience in automation languages like Python or GoLang
• Tech Lead Experience

Clearance Requirements:

• Minimum Secret Clearance required

Work Type:

• Remote with occasional onsite presence as required.
• May require up to 25% travel

Salary Range:

$160,000 - $210,000

The determination of compensation is predicated upon a candidate's comprehensive experience, demonstrated skill, and proven abilities

What we will offer you:

• Highly competitive salary
• Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) and company match
• Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
• Education & training benefits
• Annual budget for your tech/gadgets needs
• Team off‑site in fun places!
• Generous Referral Bonuses
• And More!

Our Vision Statement:

We bridge the gap between humans and data through radical transparency and our obsession withthemission.

Our Customer Obsession:

We will approach every deliverable like it's a product. We will adopt a customer‑obsessed mentality. As we grow, and our footprint becomes larger, teams and employees will treat each other not only as teammates but customers. We must live the customer‑obsessed mindset, always. This will help us scale and it will translate to the interactions that our Rafters have with their clients and other product teams that they integrate with. Our culture will enable our success and set us apart from other companies.

How do we get there?

Public‑sector modernization is critical for us to live in a better world. We, at Raft, want to innovate and solve complex problems. And, if we are successful, our generation and the ones that follow us will live in a delightful, efficient, and accessible world where out‑of‑box thinking,and collaboration is a norm.

Raft's core philosophy is Ubuntu: IAm, BecauseWe are. We support our "nadi" by elevating the other Rafters. We work as a hyper collaborative team where each team member brings a unique perspective, adding value that did not exist before. People make Raft special. We celebrate each other and our cognitive and cultural diversity. We are devoted to our practice of innovation and collaboration.

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.