Job Title: Principal Software Engineer
Location: Bethesda,
MD (Hybrid / Mostly On-Site)
Engagement Type: Full
- Time
Clearance: Able
to obtain Public Trust clearance upon hire
Role Overview
Stackular is seeking a hands-on Principal Software Engineer to provide cross-stack technical leadership on a multi-year cloud-native
modernization initiative supporting a federal research client within the
National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This role operates as the senior engineering voice on a
cross-functional team that spans application development, cloud infrastructure,
data integration, automation, and security. The portfolio under modernization
includes roughly twenty legacy applications transitioning from .NET, Oracle,
and SAP BusinessObjects on VM-based hosting to an AWS-managed,
microservices-based platform delivered through a federated GraphQL API layer
and a React/TypeScript frontend.
This position is ideal for engineers who can both write
production-grade code and exercise sound technical judgment when changes cross
domain boundaries — reviewing architecture, APIs, infrastructure, and data work
side-by-side, and helping a newly integrated DevSecOps team deliver coherent,
secure, operable systems.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Leadership
& Code Review
- Provide
hands-on technical leadership across modernization engineering work,
including application code, APIs, cloud infrastructure, automation
pipelines, and database changes.
- Review
pull requests that affect any layer of the stack; approve or recommend
changes based on implementation risk, API design, data impact, security
posture, deployment readiness, and architectural alignment.
- Enforce
consistent engineering patterns for APIs, distributed services, cloud
deployment, data integration, observability, and secure configuration.
- Uphold
the program's modern engineering and cloud architecture standards,
including microservice boundaries, schema governance, and
infrastructure-as-code guardrails.
Architecture &
Engineering Execution
- Help
engineering teams translate target architecture decisions into working,
maintainable code on the approved AWS technology stack.
- Guide
design and implementation of containerized microservices using Python
(FastAPI), GraphQL subgraphs (Apollo Federation), and React/TypeScript
frontends.
- Advise
on data architecture decisions involving Amazon RDS PostgreSQL, AWS Glue
data pipelines, and legacy system integrations following the Strangler Fig
migration pattern.
- Support
secure-by-default cloud delivery on Amazon EKS using Terraform, GitHub
Actions CI/CD, and AWS-native services (Secrets Manager, CloudWatch,
X-Ray, WAF, ALB).
- Contribute
to and review Architecture Decision Records when implementation choices
deviate from approved patterns or introduce new technologies.
Cross-Team
Coordination & Mentorship
- Partner
with the project stakeholders to identify technical dependencies,
blockers, and sequencing issues during backlog refinement, sprint
planning, and release coordination.
- Coordinate
with the Enterprise Architect, application development leads,
infrastructure and operations engineers, and security personnel when
changes require specialized review or have architectural, operational, or
compliance implications.
- Translate
architecture and security guidance into practical, day-to-day
implementation advice for engineers across the team.
- Mentor
engineers on cloud-native delivery practices, distributed system patterns,
secure development, observability, and operational ownership.
Required Skills &
Qualifications
- 7+
years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 2
years in a technical lead, staff engineer, or principal engineer capacity
on production cloud systems.
- Proven
ability to reason across the full stack — frontend, backend, API,
database, cloud infrastructure, automation, and security — and to evaluate
the downstream impact of cross-boundary changes.
- Demonstrated
experience designing, building, or reviewing distributed systems and
microservice-style architectures, including API contracts, data ownership
boundaries, and inter-service communication patterns.
- Strong,
hands-on proficiency in Python (FastAPI or equivalent framework) and a
modern frontend ecosystem (React with TypeScript preferred).
- Production
experience with GraphQL APIs; familiarity with federated GraphQL (Apollo
Federation, schema composition, schema governance, breaking-change
detection in CI) is strongly preferred.
- Deep
working knowledge of AWS cloud-native services, including EKS/Kubernetes,
RDS PostgreSQL, S3, IAM, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, and VPC networking.
- Practical
experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), containerized delivery
(Docker), and CI/CD automation (GitHub Actions or equivalent).
- Experience
integrating modern services with legacy systems (.NET, Oracle, SAP
BusinessObjects, or comparable) and executing incremental migrations using
patterns such as Strangler Fig.
- Working
knowledge of secure software delivery, including identity federation
(OIDC, SAML 2.0, OAuth2), secrets management, RBAC, audit logging, and
compliance evidence collection.
- Strong
written and verbal communication; ability to explain technical tradeoffs
clearly to engineers, program leadership, and non-technical stakeholders.
- Collaborative
technical leadership style suited to a cross-functional team where
influence comes from clarity, judgment, and trust rather than formal
hierarchy.
Technical Skills
- Cloud Platform: AWS
(EKS, RDS PostgreSQL, S3, Glue, IAM, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, X-Ray, WAF,
ALB, Route 53)
- Languages: Python
(FastAPI), TypeScript/JavaScript; working familiarity with .NET / C# for legacy
interop
- APIs: GraphQL
(Apollo Federation), REST, API gateway design, schema governance and versioning
- Frontend: React
with TypeScript, component-based design systems
- Data: PostgreSQL,
AWS Glue ETL, SQL/NoSQL patterns, integration with legacy Oracle and reporting
platforms
- DevOps Tools: GitHub
Actions (preferred), GitLab CI, Jenkins, or equivalent CI/CD platforms
- Containers &
Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes (Amazon EKS), Helm
- Infrastructure as
Code: Terraform (modules, remote state, policy-as-code)
- Observability: Amazon
CloudWatch, AWS X-Ray, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack
- Security: OAuth2,
OIDC, SAML 2.0, AWS Secrets Manager, IAM, container/image scanning, dependency
scanning, SAST/DAST integration in CI
Preferred
Qualifications
- Experience
supporting federal modernization or compliance-driven environments (FISMA,
NIST 800-53, FedRAMP Moderate/High).
- Background
producing or guiding cATO-related technical evidence (control narratives,
scan results, IaC posture, observability artifacts).
- Hands-on
experience with AWS Glue or comparable serverless ETL tooling for governed
data integration.
- Exposure
to event-driven architectures and change-data-capture (Kafka, Amazon MSK,
Debezium, etc.)
- Familiarity
with Apollo Federation tooling, schema registries, persisted queries, and
breaking-change detection workflows.
- Prior
experience working in or alongside cross-functional DevSecOps teams that
integrate infrastructure, application development, and security personnel.
Nice to Have
- AWS
certifications (Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer
Professional, or Security Specialty).
- Certified
Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or comparable orchestration certification.
- Experience
with zero-trust network architectures and federal identity integration
(Entra ID, OIDC, SAML 2.0 federation).
- Exposure
to AI/ML-assisted development practices and developer productivity
tooling.
- Experience
contributing to Architecture Decision Records and engineering guardrails
in regulated environments.
- Familiarity
with NIH or other federal research IT environments and their compliance,
identity, and networking baselines.