Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer

Clarity Innovations is a trusted national security partner, dedicated to safeguarding our nation's interests and delivering innovative solutions that empower the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of Defense (DoD) to transform data into actionable intelligence, ensuring mission success in an evolving world.

Our mission-first software and data engineering platform modernizes data operations, utilizing advanced workflows, CI/CD, and secure DevSecOps practices. We focus on challenges in Information Warfare, Cyber Operations, Operational Security, and Data Structuring, enabling end-to-end solutions that drive operational impact.

We are committed to delivering cutting-edge tools and capabilities that address the most complex national security challenges, empowering our partners to stay ahead of emerging threats and ensuring the success of their critical missions. At Clarity, we are people-focused and set on being a destination employer for top talent, offering an environment where innovation thrives, careers grow, and individuals are valued. Join us as we continue to lead innovation and tackle the most pressing challenges in national security.

Position Overview

This position is part of a dynamic team at the forefront of developing critical components of a next generation, distributed cyber network operations platform providing novel solutions to challenges that cyber missions face at scale. In this role, you will directly contribute to the core messaging framework at the heart of intra-platform orchestration. Your work on the team will be to directly contribute to the design and implementation of microservices written in Python and Go, containerized via Docker images, and deployed into a Kubernetes cluster. A developer that will flourish in this role will have a broad purview of experiences including secure networking practices such as implementing mTLS at the application and service-mesh layer, leveraging gRPC to facilitate intra-process comms, and debugging GQL APIs. Additionally, this role presents unique opportunities, such as engagement with our customers and end-user groups to help iterate and streamline functionality.

The ideal candidate takes pride in the work that they do and strives for excellence in everything. They run towards a challenge and intentionally seek out hard problems that push them out of their comfort zone. They understand that the mission we support is bigger than any one individual and has a massive impact on our country's national security. The team dynamic is relational, humble, and excellent. We own up to our mistakes quickly and readily, we think about how our work affects the personal lives of our teammates, and we do not settle for average solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Designs, develops, documents, tests and debugs software applications and systems while providing solutions to a variety of technical problems of moderate scope and complexity.
• Develop robust and high-quality software aligned with the overall product vision, balancing user requirements with strategic goals and consistently delivering working solutions on schedule.
• Contributes to the completion of milestones associated with specific projects and CI development to ensure smooth versioning/release cycles.
• Build and integrate automated testing into the product's codebase.
• Foster a collaborative team environment, mentoring more junior developers when applicable and coordinating efforts across cross-functional teams to ensure project success.

Qualifications

• Must have a current TS/SCI active security clearance (note, only US Citizens are eligible for security clearances).
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline. (Degree requirement can be met with four years of hands-on experience in a Software Engineering or similar full-time position.)
• Ability to collaborate as a team but execute independently.
• Thrives in a high-trust, adaptable team environment.
• Familiar with contributing to or leading the design of new capabilities.
• Knowledge and expertise with the Go and/or Python programming languages.
• Must be comfortable with containerization and deploying and debugging containerized services (e.g. Docker, Podman).
• Knowledge of security concepts, networks, and system internals to apply in daily tasks.
• Proficient in Linux-based development environments (e.g., Ubuntu, RedHat Enterprise Linux, or derivatives).
• Proficient writing Automated Tests (e.g., unit tests, acceptance tests, system/integration tests).
• Proficient with version control software such as Git and hosted code repositories, such as GitLab, along with basic CI/CD concepts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building and operating Go-based microservice distributed system architectures.
• Experience with Kubernetes (K8s) deployment strategies, cluster lifecycle (deployment, troubleshooting, scaling), and container orchestration.
• Experience implementing modern DevOps practices and tools (e.g., CI/CD, IaC, GitOps) in production deployment workflows.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.