Principal Software Engineer

Job ID: 2613334

Location

San Diego, CA, US

Date Posted

2026-06-08

Category

Software

Subcategory

SW Engineer

Schedule

Full-Time

Shift

Day Job

Travel

Yes - 10% of the time

Minimum Clearance Required

None

Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain

Secret

Potential for Remote Work

ORA_REMOTE

Description

SAIC is seeking a full-stack Principal Software Engineer to join the Joint Range Extension (JRE) software development team. This is a Remote Role in San Diego, CA. It is REQUIRED to be local to the area. You must be a U.S. Citizen to be considered who can obtain a Secret clearance after you start.

JRE is a combat-proven datalink gateway that plays a vital role in the defense of the United States and our allies by extending the reach of tactical data across the battlespace and around the globe. As a principal software engineer on the team, you’ll play an essential role in evolving JRE for the future mission needs of the warfighter.

JOB DUTIES

• Design, develop, and maintain major new features, enhancements, and integrations for the JRE suite of edge- and cloud-deployed client and server applications.
• Develop and contribute deep domain expertise in the tactical data link, situational awareness, and command and control domains.
• Refactor existing implementations to align with and meet future product needs.
• Leverage your experience to contribute to architecture and implementation reviews of other engineers.

Qualifications

REQUIREMENTS

Credentials and Education

• Bachelor’s in computer science or a related field and nine (9) years or more of professional software engineering experience; Masters and seven (7) years or more of related experience; relevant experience to be substituted in lieu of degree.
• 5+ years in a technical project lead role.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen.
• Must be able to obtain a Secret clearance after start.

Technical Qualifications

• Deep expertise in the Java platform; including fluency with Java, and familiarity with JVM languages such as Kotlin or Scala.
• Thorough knowledge of object-oriented and functional design patterns; software design principles; refactoring techniques, code and test automation smells, and domain-driven design.
• Experience with RPC and message-oriented distributed systems integration and related integration patterns.
• Experience with network programming, networking protocols, and the low-level processing of binary data.
• Proven experience developing and maintaining large-scale codebases (1M+ lines).
• Experience leading successful large-scale, phased refactoring projects.
• Experience with dependency injection and the Spring family of frameworks, including Spring Boot, Spring Data, and Spring Security.
• Team-based development experience via pairing or mobbing, and an eagerness to work collaboratively.
• Test-driven development experience.
• Experience designing and developing solutions iteratively and incrementally via Agile methodologies such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, or Lean Software Development.
• Experience with continuous integration and modern deployment practices for edge and cloud systems.
• Experience developing systems built with Gradle.

Domain Knowledge

• Significant experience in the tactical data link and C5ISR domains, or in the development of comparable mission-critical, high-reliability, near-real-time systems.
• Knowledge of MIL-STDs such as 6016, 6017, 3011, 6020, 6040, and 2525; tactical terminals and radios such as MIDS JTRS, STT, AN/ARC, and AN/PRC; GPS and inertial navigation systems protocols such as NMEA 0183 and GPS-153; avionics standards such as ARINC 429 and 661; and industry security standards such as DISA STIGs, and NIST SP 800-171 and 800-207.

DESIRED SKILLS

• Experience with native development with C, C++, or Rust.
• Public contributions to open-source projects.

Target salary range: $160,001 - $200,000. The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors.