Presentation
Lead Software Engineer - Backend (Richland, WA)
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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Richland, Washington
SessionJob Postings
DescriptionResponsibilities
SOLVING THE HARDEST PROBLEMS IN NATIONAL SECURITY
Protecting U.S. residents and visitors requires sophisticated technological solutions to counter increasingly complex, AI-enabled threats. As adversaries deploy autonomous systems, coordinate multi-domain operations, and leverage advanced AI capabilities, our capabilities must evolve to match this complexity. The PNNL national security mission employs our expert engineering talent—self-driven innovators who thrive in ambiguity—to architect and deliver next-generation AI systems, multi-intelligence fusion platforms, and large-scale analytics capabilities that form the backbone of our nation's security infrastructure.
THE CHALLENGE IS REAL. THE PROBLEMS ARE HARD. THE IMPACT IS IMMEDIATE
You'll tackle problems that don't exist elsewhere from detecting and preventing smuggling of drugs and contraband to correlating petabytes of multi-modal intelligence data to solve National Security Problems. Every system you architect, every algorithm you optimize, and every deployment you lead directly strengthens our nation's security posture. This work demands relentless drive—the kind of engineer who sees obstacles as puzzles to solve and treats mission success as personal responsibility.
PNNL's advanced AI engineering initiatives—spanning agentic AI architectures, petabyte-scale data orchestration, and real-time multi-intelligence processing—are defining the future of national security technology. With your expertise in scalable system design, AI/ML engineering, and complex data architectures, you'll contribute to revolutionary capabilities that process multi-modal intelligence data at unprecedented scale and speed. We operate with startup agility and urgency, rapidly iterating and deploying solutions where failure isn't an option.
APPLYING YOUR ENGINEERING EXPERTISE TO CHALLENGES IMPACTING NATIONAL SECURITY
As a Lead Software Engineer on PNNL's Software Engineering and Architectures (SEA) team, you will architect and lead the development of mission-critical AI systems, design systems at scale in support of mission objectives, and drive technical strategy for some of the nation's most sophisticated intelligence and security applications. You'll take ownership from concept to deployment, mentor and develop staff, collaborate with research scientists and domain experts, and translate cutting-edge research into production-ready systems deployed in highly secure environments—all while maintaining the entrepreneurial mindset that turns breakthrough research into operational reality.
HANDS-ON IMPACT ACROSS DIVERSE, HIGH-STAKES CHALLENGES
System Architecture – Design and build distributed platforms in state-of-the-art secure facilities, architect high-availability microservices, conduct performance testing on enterprise-scale systems
Field Deployment – Deploy and optimize software systems in operational environments, troubleshoot mission-critical applications in real-world conditions, collaborate directly with system operators and infrastructure teams
Performance Engineering – Build ultra-high-performance APIs that handle millions of requests per second, architect systems that operate under extreme performance constraints, solve scalability challenges at national scale
Real-Time Systems – Build platforms that process streaming data with sub-millisecond latency, architect fault-tolerant systems that achieve 99.99% uptime, optimize performance for mission-critical operations
What You'll Architect & Build:
Software Platforms – Design scalable microservices architectures that coordinate across multiple domains, build robust API gateways for classified environments, architect service mesh implementations that handle the nation's most sensitive traffic
High-Performance Processing Systems – Lead distributed system design processing data from hundreds of sources simultaneously, architect real-time streaming platforms that handle terabytes per hour, design event-driven architectures that scale horizontally across data centers
Mission-Critical Infrastructure – Design container orchestration platforms that span multiple security domains, architect CI/CD pipelines processing millions of deployments, build monitoring and observability systems across secure enclaves
Technical Leadership with Impact – Mentor engineering teams building systems that push the boundaries of software architecture, drive technical decisions that influence platform strategy, lead cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple development teams
Technical Expertise Expected:
Programming Excellence – Expert-level Python, C#/.Net, with proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript, [Java, C/C++, Rust]
Cloud & Infrastructure – AWS/Azure architecture, Kubernetes orchestration, Infrastructure as Code, [GCP, Multi-cloud, Edge computing]
Data & Storage – S3, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redshift, Delta Lake, Vector stores
AI/ML Engineering – Agentic AI systems, LLMs, model deployment & orchestration, MLOps platforms, distributed training, model serving at scale, vector databases, graph analytics
Intelligence Systems – Data fusion, GEOINT processing, signals analysis, threat correlation
Data Engineering – Spark/Databricks, Kafka/streaming, data lake/mesh architectures, real-time analytics, distributed computing
Specialized Systems – Geospatial processing frameworks, time-series databases, distributed computing, secure enclaves
Leadership Tools – Agile/SAFe methodologies, GitLab Enterprise, advanced CI/CD, security-first DevOps
Impact & Growth:
Lead technical strategy for AI-powered national security systems while mentoring the next generation of engineers. Your architectural decisions will influence platforms processing intelligence data at national scale, directly contributing to our nation's security posture.
National Interest Project Examples:
Detect and prevent smuggling of drugs and contraband at ports of entry [Link]
Develop large data pipelines to thwart funding for terrorists, nuclear proliferators, drug cartels, and rogue leaders [Link]
Applying big data solutions to national security problems [Link]
Applying image classification for nuclear forensics analysis [Link]
Develop capabilities for scalable geospatial analytics [Link]
Use remotely sensed imagery to identify and monitor the progression of wildfires [Link]
Analyze the resiliency of the electric power grid to prevent large-scale outages [Link]
Optimize building efficiency using IOT and ICS data with automated demand-response markets [Link]
Model climate change and impacts to civilization [Link]
Hunt for the existence of dark matter to understand the nature of the universe [Link]
This position is based in Richland, WA and requires an onsite presence Monday through Thursday, with Friday as required by business needs.
SOLVING THE HARDEST PROBLEMS IN NATIONAL SECURITY
Protecting U.S. residents and visitors requires sophisticated technological solutions to counter increasingly complex, AI-enabled threats. As adversaries deploy autonomous systems, coordinate multi-domain operations, and leverage advanced AI capabilities, our capabilities must evolve to match this complexity. The PNNL national security mission employs our expert engineering talent—self-driven innovators who thrive in ambiguity—to architect and deliver next-generation AI systems, multi-intelligence fusion platforms, and large-scale analytics capabilities that form the backbone of our nation's security infrastructure.
THE CHALLENGE IS REAL. THE PROBLEMS ARE HARD. THE IMPACT IS IMMEDIATE
You'll tackle problems that don't exist elsewhere from detecting and preventing smuggling of drugs and contraband to correlating petabytes of multi-modal intelligence data to solve National Security Problems. Every system you architect, every algorithm you optimize, and every deployment you lead directly strengthens our nation's security posture. This work demands relentless drive—the kind of engineer who sees obstacles as puzzles to solve and treats mission success as personal responsibility.
PNNL's advanced AI engineering initiatives—spanning agentic AI architectures, petabyte-scale data orchestration, and real-time multi-intelligence processing—are defining the future of national security technology. With your expertise in scalable system design, AI/ML engineering, and complex data architectures, you'll contribute to revolutionary capabilities that process multi-modal intelligence data at unprecedented scale and speed. We operate with startup agility and urgency, rapidly iterating and deploying solutions where failure isn't an option.
APPLYING YOUR ENGINEERING EXPERTISE TO CHALLENGES IMPACTING NATIONAL SECURITY
As a Lead Software Engineer on PNNL's Software Engineering and Architectures (SEA) team, you will architect and lead the development of mission-critical AI systems, design systems at scale in support of mission objectives, and drive technical strategy for some of the nation's most sophisticated intelligence and security applications. You'll take ownership from concept to deployment, mentor and develop staff, collaborate with research scientists and domain experts, and translate cutting-edge research into production-ready systems deployed in highly secure environments—all while maintaining the entrepreneurial mindset that turns breakthrough research into operational reality.
HANDS-ON IMPACT ACROSS DIVERSE, HIGH-STAKES CHALLENGES
System Architecture – Design and build distributed platforms in state-of-the-art secure facilities, architect high-availability microservices, conduct performance testing on enterprise-scale systems
Field Deployment – Deploy and optimize software systems in operational environments, troubleshoot mission-critical applications in real-world conditions, collaborate directly with system operators and infrastructure teams
Performance Engineering – Build ultra-high-performance APIs that handle millions of requests per second, architect systems that operate under extreme performance constraints, solve scalability challenges at national scale
Real-Time Systems – Build platforms that process streaming data with sub-millisecond latency, architect fault-tolerant systems that achieve 99.99% uptime, optimize performance for mission-critical operations
What You'll Architect & Build:
Software Platforms – Design scalable microservices architectures that coordinate across multiple domains, build robust API gateways for classified environments, architect service mesh implementations that handle the nation's most sensitive traffic
High-Performance Processing Systems – Lead distributed system design processing data from hundreds of sources simultaneously, architect real-time streaming platforms that handle terabytes per hour, design event-driven architectures that scale horizontally across data centers
Mission-Critical Infrastructure – Design container orchestration platforms that span multiple security domains, architect CI/CD pipelines processing millions of deployments, build monitoring and observability systems across secure enclaves
Technical Leadership with Impact – Mentor engineering teams building systems that push the boundaries of software architecture, drive technical decisions that influence platform strategy, lead cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple development teams
Technical Expertise Expected:
Programming Excellence – Expert-level Python, C#/.Net, with proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript, [Java, C/C++, Rust]
Cloud & Infrastructure – AWS/Azure architecture, Kubernetes orchestration, Infrastructure as Code, [GCP, Multi-cloud, Edge computing]
Data & Storage – S3, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redshift, Delta Lake, Vector stores
AI/ML Engineering – Agentic AI systems, LLMs, model deployment & orchestration, MLOps platforms, distributed training, model serving at scale, vector databases, graph analytics
Intelligence Systems – Data fusion, GEOINT processing, signals analysis, threat correlation
Data Engineering – Spark/Databricks, Kafka/streaming, data lake/mesh architectures, real-time analytics, distributed computing
Specialized Systems – Geospatial processing frameworks, time-series databases, distributed computing, secure enclaves
Leadership Tools – Agile/SAFe methodologies, GitLab Enterprise, advanced CI/CD, security-first DevOps
Impact & Growth:
Lead technical strategy for AI-powered national security systems while mentoring the next generation of engineers. Your architectural decisions will influence platforms processing intelligence data at national scale, directly contributing to our nation's security posture.
National Interest Project Examples:
Detect and prevent smuggling of drugs and contraband at ports of entry [Link]
Develop large data pipelines to thwart funding for terrorists, nuclear proliferators, drug cartels, and rogue leaders [Link]
Applying big data solutions to national security problems [Link]
Applying image classification for nuclear forensics analysis [Link]
Develop capabilities for scalable geospatial analytics [Link]
Use remotely sensed imagery to identify and monitor the progression of wildfires [Link]
Analyze the resiliency of the electric power grid to prevent large-scale outages [Link]
Optimize building efficiency using IOT and ICS data with automated demand-response markets [Link]
Model climate change and impacts to civilization [Link]
Hunt for the existence of dark matter to understand the nature of the universe [Link]
This position is based in Richland, WA and requires an onsite presence Monday through Thursday, with Friday as required by business needs.
RequirementsQualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
PhD and 3 years of relevant experience -OR-
MS/MA or higher and 5 years of relevant experience -OR-
BS/BA and 7 years of relevant experience -OR-
AA and 16 years of relevant experience -OR-
HS/GED and 18 years of relevant experience
Qualifying software development experience in designing, architecting, programming, deploying, and automating software solutions in support of scientific research or consumer digital product development may be counted
Preferred Qualifications:
Degree in computer science, software engineering, or related field
7+ years of experience in designing or deploying large-scale and high-performance ETL pipelines and analytics
7+ years Python or other software development experience
Strong understanding of software engineering and data management best practices
Strong cloud architecture and implementation experience
Cloud and database certifications
Familiar with machine learning algorithms with hands-on experience in machine learning pipeline development
Active Federal Q Clearance and ability to maintain such clearance
Hazardous Working Conditions/Environment
Not applicable.
Additional Information
This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a federal security clearance.
A security clearance background investigation includes review of your employment, education, financial, and criminal history, as well as interviews with you and your personal references, neighbors, and co-workers to determine trustworthiness, reliability, and loyalty to the United States. The investigation also examines your foreign connections, drug and alcohol use, foreign influence, and overall conduct.
Requirements:
U.S. Citizenship
Background Investigation: Applicants selected will be subject to a Federal background investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified matter in accordance with 10 CFR 710, Appendix B.
Drug Testing: All Security Clearance positions are Testing Designated Positions, which means that the applicant selected for hire is subject to pre-employment drug testing, and post-employment random drug testing. In addition, applicants must be able to demonstrate non-use of illegal drugs, including marijuana, for the 12 consecutive months preceding completion of the requisite Questionnaire for National Security Positions (QNSP).
Note: Applicants will be considered ineligible for security clearance processing by the U.S. Department of Energy if non-use of illegal drugs, including marijuana, for 12 months cannot be demonstrated.
“Referral Eligible”
Testing Designated Position
This position is a Testing Designated Position (TDP). The candidate selected for this position will be subject to pre-employment and random drug testing for illegal drugs, including marijuana, consistent with the Controlled Substances Act and the PNNL Workplace Substance Abuse Program.
Company DescriptionAbout PNNL
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is a world-class research institution powered by a highly educated, diverse workforce committed to the values of Integrity, Creativity, Collaboration, Impact, and Courage. Every year, scores of dynamic, driven people come to PNNL to work with renowned researchers on meaningful science, innovations and outcomes for the U.S. Department of Energy and other sponsors; here is your chance to be one of them!
At PNNL, you will find an exciting research environment and excellent benefits including health insurance, and flexible work schedules. PNNL is located in eastern Washington State—the dry side of Washington known for its stellar outdoor recreation and affordable cost of living. The Lab’s campus is only a 45-minute flight (or ~3 hour drive) from Seattle or Portland, and is serviced by the convenient PSC airport, connected to 8 major hubs.
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Event Type
Job Posting
TimeMonday, 17 November 20254:37pm - 4:37pm CST
LocationHall 6
United States of America
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
In-person
Full Time
Permanent