Senior Software Engineer (AI-Enabled Platforms & Tools)

This is not a maintenance role. This is a reinvention role.

Leidos is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and sustain AI-enabled software platforms and developer tools that support modernization of mission-critical systems.

This role moves beyond delivering individual features to owning parts of the system. A Senior Software Engineer makes solid technical decisions, contributes to design work, and provides technical continuity on the team while working closely with senior and principal engineers.

This is a hands-on senior engineering role with meaningful design responsibility and delivery accountability.

This is a role for builders who bias toward action, who believe disruption can coexist with rigor, and who want to apply cutting-edge AI to the problems that matter most.

Mission Context

Our teams develop software systems that support critical national missions across regulated and safety-critical domains.

These systems require:

• High reliability, security, and resilience
• Thoughtful modernization of legacy architectures
• Responsible and governed application of AI capabilities

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will own and evolve key subsystems that enable these outcomes, ensuring solutions are robust, maintainable, and production-ready.

Why Join Us?

• Work on real, mission-critical systems—not experimental demos
• Gain hands-on experience with AI-enabled software in production environments
• Learn from senior and principal engineers while maintaining meaningful ownership
• Build a long-term technical career with a clear and structured growth path

Key Responsibilities

Technical Design & Implementation

• Own the design and implementation of complex features or subsystems within established architectures
• Translate high-level requirements into detailed technical designs and implementation plans
• Develop and maintain high-quality software using modern programming languages such as Python, Java, Go, or TypeScript
• Ensure solutions meet defined standards for quality, security, performance, and reliability

AI-Enabled Systems (Applied Design & Execution)

• Design and implement AI-enabled features using approved frameworks, models, and patterns, including:
  • API-based AI integrations
  • Prompt- and workflow-driven AI capabilities
  • Retrieval- or data-assisted application components
• Evaluate and improve AI-assisted behavior using established testing, validation, and review practices
• Apply AI safety, governance, and review mechanisms consistently across owned components

Platform & Cloud Contributions

• Design, develop, and support services deployed in cloud-native environments
• Contribute to containerized applications, CI/CD pipelines, and operational tooling
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex application- and service-level issues
• Partner with platform, security, and infrastructure teams to deliver scalable and reliable solutions

Technical Leadership & Collaboration

• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to T2/T3 engineers through code reviews, pairing, and design discussions
• Act as a go-to engineer for assigned subsystems or domains
• Participate actively in cross-team technical discussions and design reviews
• Influence engineering best practices through example and constructive feedback

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field
• 8+ years of relevant software engineering experience
• Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Python, Java, Go, TypeScript)
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering complex features or subsystems
• Experience with:
  • Service-based or microservice architectures
  • RESTful APIs
  • Software testing and CI/CD pipelines
• Familiarity with:
  • Containers (Docker)
  • Kubernetes or similar orchestration platforms
  • Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Ability to work independently on complex problems with minimal supervision
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S.

Preferred Qualifications

• Professional experience working with AI/ML or LLM-enabled systems
• Experience working in regulated, secure, or mission-critical environments
• Experience contributing to platform engineering, developer tooling, or system modernization initiatives

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:

January 29, 2026

Pay Range:

Pay Range $107,900.00 - $195,050.00

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.