Backend Software Engineer Lead

IvoryCloud offers a mission-driven environment with a collaborative, security-focused culture. This hybrid role in Rockville, MD anchors backend development for a federal enterprise system, giving you influence over architecture, API design, and microservices across NIPR and SIPR environments. You will lead a skilled backend team, shape delivery across dual tracks, and partner with Data Engineering, QA, and government stakeholders. The position carries a competitive salary of USD 145,000 - 175,000 per year, a comprehensive benefits package, and eligibility for company and Business Development bonuses. A U.S. citizenship requirement and an active Secret clearance are non negotiable, with on-site expectations in the National Capital Region when needed.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical lead for backend engineering on the program, owning architectural decisions, API design, microservices implementation, and data-access patterns.
• Anchor the backend team, providing mentorship, code-review leadership, and architectural guidance throughout the sprint cycle.
• Engineer high-volume, high-availability REST APIs with contract-first OpenAPI specifications, semantic versioning, and consumer-driven contract testing in CI/CD.
• Deliberately architect microservices boundaries to enable independent deployability, fault isolation, and team autonomy while avoiding distributed-monolith patterns.
• Implement service-to-service security at the application layer, including mutual TLS, OAuth 2.0 + JWT, rate limiting, and service mesh policy alignment with infrastructure controls.
• Collaborate with Data Engineers to build the data-access layer supporting financial reporting and audit remediation requirements.
• Incorporate data-completeness validation into application logic to flag missing fields for correction rather than persisting incomplete records.
• Maintain full requirements traceability from user stories to acceptance criteria, test cases, and delivered functionality to support audit evidence.
• Apply TDD and BDD across the backend, aiming for broad automated coverage and full coverage on security-sensitive code.
• Practice dual-track sprint discipline, balancing O&M work with new features and reserving an audit-remediation lane within feature development.
• Coordinate cross-domain releases across NIPR and SIPR, ensuring NIPR validation before cross-domain promotion and SIPR deployment within the designated window.
• Adopt classification-aware data handling, including data labeling, DLP integration, and provenance logging within the application rather than at the network layer.
• Maintain integration points with external federal systems using contract-first APIs and feature-toggle decoupling to avoid external timelines delaying internal delivery.
• Partner with QA to build test automation, embed quality gates in CI/CD, and facilitate UAT before production releases.
• Lead architectural and code reviews on every backend pull request, ensuring production changes receive documented technical and security sign-off.
• Prepare release notes, deployment runbooks, and rollback procedures for each production release; coordinate with Release Management and Platform/DevSecOps leads for blue/green deployments.
• Contribute to program reporting by delivering technical delivery, code quality, and reliability indicators for government leadership.
• Maintain a living backend engineering risk register, tracking technical debt, architectural risks, scalability ceilings, and security findings with assigned owners and dashboards.
• Ensure adherence to established CMMI Level 3 DEV and SVC appraised processes for requirements management, configuration management, verification, validation, and QA.
• Represent backend capabilities in technical interchange meetings, architectural review boards, Change Control Board reviews, and cross-agency groups; provide engineering feasibility input to leaders.
• Mentor and develop supporting Backend Engineers and Frontend Developers on backend integration concerns; support recruiting, onboarding, and professional growth.
• Research emerging backend practices, microservices patterns, API governance, and AI-assisted tooling, adopting changes only when they demonstrably accelerate delivery or improve quality and audit evidence.

Requirements

• U.S. Citizenship is required (non-negotiable).
• Active Secret clearance required.
• Minimum 10 years of backend engineering experience on enterprise applications, including at least 5 years serving U.S. federal customers and 3 years in a lead, senior, or architect role on mission-scale systems.
• Location: Arlington, Virginia / National Capital Region; hybrid schedule with regular on-site presence at DSCA Headquarters (Arlington, VA) and IvoryCloud Headquarters (Rockville, MD). Must reside within commuting distance and be able to report on-site within three hours of request.
• Expert proficiency in Java, Python, or .NET (C#); working proficiency in a second stack strongly preferred.
• Experience designing microservices, REST APIs (OpenAPI / Swagger), contract-first integration, and working with relational and analytical data stores at federal scale.
• Strong oral and written communication skills for briefing technical leadership, government teams, and the Government Product Owner on architecture decisions and trade-offs.
• Demonstrated TDD and BDD discipline with requirements traceability and automated coverage on security-sensitive code.
• Direct experience operating across NIPR and SIPR environments, including cross-domain release coordination and classification-aware data handling.

Technologies

• Java
• Python
• .NET (C#)
• OpenAPI / Swagger
• OAuth 2.0
• JWT
• Mutual TLS

Benefits

• Salaried position and eligibility for company and Business Development bonus programs
• 401(k) with matching
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Referral program
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance
• Flexible schedule

Certifications

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate (AZ-204)
• AWS Certified Developer - Associate
• CompTIA Security+
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
• Java Developer
• Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP) or equivalent (within six months of hire)

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a CMMI Level 3 or higher appraised Agile organization delivering across NIPR and SIPR
• Direct experience with defense security cooperation, Foreign Military Sales, or similar mission domains
• Experience building high-volume federal financial or transactional systems
• Background integrating with DoD data ecosystems, cross-domain solutions, or classified environments, such as DoD Advana, eMASS, or Bifrost CDS
• A record of backend engineering work reflected in audit findings closures, performance improvements, or debt reduction in federal programs