Principal Software Developer

Leidos is seeking a Principal Software DevOps Developer to join a high performing team leading the digital modernization of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) platform. TFDM is a critical FAA NextGen program that improves aircraft surface and terminal operations by enabling more efficient runway and airspace management, helping reduce congestion across the National Airspace System (NAS).

We are a team of forward-looking professionals in need of a strong candidate with these key required skills: Software Development (Java/C++/Python), DevOps / GitOps (Gitlab, ArgoCD), Containerization, OpenShift/Kubernetes, AI/AI Assisted Development, AWS/Cloud development.

Travel: 25% travel is required for this position. Travel will be to various airports across the country as the TFDM system is deployed to 89 airports. The travel will generally be between 1 to 2 weeks per trip.

Location: This position is in our Gaithersburg, MD office 3 days a week and 2 days a week from home office.

Responsibilities:

• Architect, design, develop, and implement next-generation application using software engineering best practices in the latest technologies:

• DevOps and CI/CD tooling (GitLab, ArgoCD, Docker, SonarQube)

• Infrastructure-as-Code (CloudFormation / Terraform, Ansible)

• Containerization and Platform-as-a-Service (Docker, OpenShift/Kubernetes)

• AWS/Cloud development

• AI-Leveraged Development (agentic coding tools like Claude Code, multi-agent orchestration, MCP-based tool integration, RAG, context engineering, AI evals/guardrails)

• Use extensive knowledge in multiple development languages, software development and system design best practices, continuous integration, continuous delivery, automation and configuration tools, testing, tool integrations, AI, and communication to modernize TFDM platform.

• Provide hands-on experience developing customer integration for enterprise CI/CD architecture.

• Provide architectural oversight to support the development team's software development, integration, test automation, security testing, and deployments.

• Provide architectural oversight, hands-on software expertise, and mentoring in these areas: modern application integration, service oriented architectures (SOA), security, business process management/business rules processing, CI/CD pipeline and containerization, reporting, and user experience (UX).

• Investigate and repair application defects regardless of component: CI/CD pipeline, front-end, business logic, middleware or backend.

• Brief executive leadership (internally or client) regarding matters of significant importance to the organization/project using written or oral skills at appropriate technical level for audience.

• All other duties as assigned or directed.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, mathematics, engineering, or related technical discipline. Master's or Doctorate degree may substitute for required experience.
• 12+ years of experience with full lifecycle development
• 7+ years of combined experience supporting GitOps/DevOps/DevSecOps
• 7+ years of combined experience of software development (Java, C++, or Python)
• Experience with AI-Leveraged Development (agentic coding tools like Claude Code, multi-agent orchestration, MCP-based tool integration, RAG, context engineering, AI evals/guardrails)
• Experience working in Agile software development environments.
• Candidate must be able to obtain/maintain a Public Trust, which requires US Citizenship or Permanent Residency
• Willingness to travel up to 25% as needed

Required Skills:

• Proven expertise in architecting, designing, and implementing solutions adhering to best practices for operational excellence, security, reliability, performance, cost optimization, and sustainability.
• Experience in communicating with and presenting solutions to Executive Management
• Hands-on experience with vetting and implementing new technologies and processes
• Solid experience with PaaS using Red Hat OpenShift (or other Kubernetes platforms), Docker/Podman containers, and Helm
• Experience in architecting and developing DevOps/GitOps solutions at an enterprise level using CI/CD tools such as GitLab, Argo CD, Argo Workflow Argo Rollout, Argo Events, and Git
• Extensive understanding and experience with designing and developing software with Java and at least one additional language such as C++, or Python
• Experience applying AI-assisted software development practices to improve developer productivity, code quality, test automation, and delivery predictability using tools such as GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or equivalent AI development platforms.
• Experience migrating legacy applications to containerized solutions on OpenShift / Kubernetes
• Experience architecting and deploying cloud-native applications to a cloud service such as Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Experience identifying requirements, researching options, designing and implementing solutions at a leadership level
• Experience with monitoring, scalability, application reliability tools
• Excellent communication and written skills

Desired Skills:

• An in-depth knowledge of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) development environment
• Preferred experience with AI spec-driven development.
• Preferred experience in Secrets/Configuration Management/Scripting
• Preferred experience with network engineering and security engineering
• Preferred experience in Service Mesh technologies such as Istio or OpenShift Service Mesh.
• Preferred experience with automated unit testing, TDD, BDD, and associated technologies (Junit, Mockito, Cucumber, Selenium, Sikuli)
• Preferred experience with Kafka, data streaming, and Event Driven Architecture (EDA),
• Preferred experience with configuration management tools (Ansible, CloudFormation / Terraform)
• AWS Cloud certifications.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo - because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 - and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

September 30, 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:

Pay Range $131,300.00 - $237,350.00

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.