Lead Software Engineer

Public Trust Eligibility Required

This is a contingent position, meaning employment is dependent upon the successful award of the associated contract to Aretum and completion of any required background investigation or security clearance verification. 

About Aretum

Aretum is a mission-driven organization committed to delivering innovative, technology-enabled solutions to our customers across defense, civilian, and homeland security sectors. Our teams work at the intersection of strategy, technology, and transformation, helping agencies solve their most critical challenges. We believe in investing in our people and creating a culture where collaboration, inclusion, and professional growth are at the forefront. 

Job Summary 

Aretum is seeking a Lead Software Engineer/Developer to serve as the hands-on technical lead of an Agile scrum team supporting a large-scale federal digital content management and systems integration program. This is a backend-focused engineering role. Python is the primary development language on the program, and you will lead the design and development of Python and Django services, REST APIs, and ETL pipelines that acquire, process, validate, and exchange digital content (images, video, audio, and textual materials) and its associated metadata between major enterprise systems. Portions of the existing platform are implemented in Java, so working Java proficiency is required, but the majority of new development is expected to be in Python. Working as part of an integrated team alongside government developers, testers, user experience staff, and subject matter experts, you will own the technical approach for content selection services, metadata transformation, API integration, secure content transfer, and workflow administration. You will guide a mid-level developer, coordinate with government technical leads, and remain accountable for the quality, maintainability, and security of the code your team delivers. This is a senior, designated lead position.

Due to the nature of our work as a federal consulting organization, employees may be expected to handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and must adhere to applicable safeguarding and compliance requirements.  

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical lead of a scrum team working on a three-week sprint cadence as part of an integrated team with government developers, testers, and stakeholders, using standard Agile practices including continuous integration and story-point-based planning in JIRA.
• Lead the design, development, and unit testing of Python and Django backend services that support system-to-system content acquisition, ingest, quality review, inventory, and reporting functions.
• Design and build REST APIs in Python and Django to support content extract, transform, and load (ETL) operations, metadata exchange, reporting, and digital content management functions across integrated enterprise systems.
• Design and implement content identification and selection services, including business rules for selection (date ranges, status flags, ownership), inclusion and exclusion criteria, filtering logic, and manual, scheduled, and event-driven selection triggers.
• Build metadata management and transformation services, including field mapping, normalization, schema validation, quality and completeness checks, and reconciliation logic for metadata mismatches and validation failures.
• Implement API integration and content transfer capabilities, including source and target API connectivity, authentication and authorization, secure transport, retry and error-handling logic, transfer status monitoring, and end-to-end transaction logging and traceability.
• Design relational data models and tune database schemas, queries, and indexes in PostgreSQL to support content registries, workflow state, audit history, and reporting.
• Implement asynchronous and background processing for long-running content operations, including queueing, task orchestration, checkpointing, throttling, and idempotent retry behavior for large or batched transfers.
• Maintain and extend existing Java components where the platform requires it, applying the same standards of testability, readability, and maintainability used across the codebase.
• Integrate existing malware scanning, file integrity validation (checksum comparison), and content routing utility services into exchange workflows through their documented APIs, including quarantine handling and remediation paths.
• Design and implement workflow administration and governance capabilities, including workflow states, approvals, escalations, exception paths, role-based permissions, operational queues, and audit logging.
• Design and tune search and indexing capabilities using Solr and Elasticsearch to support discovery, reporting, and content management features.
• Build and operate services across AWS-based development, test, staging, and production environments, contributing to infrastructure-as-code in Terraform and to containerized deployment patterns using Docker.
• Maintain continuous integration pipelines using Jenkins and Git, including automated build, test, and code quality stages such as SonarQube.
• Author unit test scripts for your own code and processes, and collaborate with government QA and testing staff who perform acceptance, integration, and accessibility testing, including participating in the creation of acceptance and testing criteria during sprint planning.
• Support the accessibility of user-facing components against WCAG 2.1 standards and support remediation of accessibility findings.
• Participate fully in Agile ceremonies, including user story creation sessions, daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives, recording all work as scored user stories in JIRA.
• Mentor the team's mid-level developer through pairing, design review, and constructive code review, and enforce the client's coding standards across the team's repositories.
• Provide technical input into lifecycle documentation maintained by the client, including system requirements and design documents, system diagrams, and security assessment and authorization artifacts.
• Handle all project information appropriately as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), performing all development within client-owned and client-managed systems and environments.
• Support end-of-engagement closeout activities, including finalizing documentation, closing tickets, and completing transition activities.

• Minimum 5 years of professional software development experience, including experience serving as a technical lead or senior developer on an Agile team.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent additional experience.
• Proven ability to lead technical designs, conduct peer code review, and mentor mid-level developers.
• Deep, hands-on experience building production backend services and REST APIs in Python, including substantial experience with the Django framework.
• Strong experience with relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL, including data modeling, schema design, query optimization, and migrations.
• Working proficiency in Java, sufficient to maintain, extend, and troubleshoot existing Java components on the platform.
• Hands-on experience with Solr and Elasticsearch, including index design and query tuning.
• Experience designing and building microservices and REST APIs, including authentication, authorization, versioning, input validation, and error handling.
• Experience building ETL or data integration pipelines, including transformation, validation, reconciliation, and error recovery.
• Hands-on experience developing and deploying applications in AWS environments.
• Working experience with Terraform for infrastructure-as-code.
• Experience building and maintaining continuous integration pipelines with Jenkins and Git-based source control.
• Working knowledge of content-addressable storage concepts and patterns.
• Proficiency with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, sufficient to support and integrate with the program's user-facing components.
• Experience working in Agile and Scrum environments, including user-story-based development in JIRA with story-point estimation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with government technical staff, product owners, and non-technical stakeholders in a fully remote setting.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting federal government clients, particularly on software development or systems integration programs.
• Experience with digital content, digital collections, or digital asset management systems, including ingest, preservation, derivative creation, or metadata exchange workflows.
• Experience with Celery or comparable distributed task queues for asynchronous processing.
• Experience with Docker, Red Hat Linux, Apache, and Varnish in enterprise environments.
• Experience with automated testing and code quality tools such as Selenium and SonarQube, and with accessibility testing practices under Section 508 and WCAG 2.1.
• Experience with reporting and monitoring tools such as Grafana or Tableau.
• Familiarity with front-end frameworks and libraries such as React, Angular, or Bootstrap.
• Experience working in environments governed by NIST SP 800-53 security controls and CUI handling requirements.
• Experience supporting assessment and authorization (A&A / ATO) activities with technical inputs such as system diagrams.
• Familiarity with metadata standards and formats such as Dublin Core, METS, MODS, or MARC.

Travel Requirements 

This is a remote position; however, occasional travel may be required based on project needs, client meetings, team collaboration events, or training sessions. Travel is expected to be less than 10% and will be communicated in advance whenever possible. 

EEO Statement

Aretum is committed to fostering a workplace rooted in excellence, integrity, and equal opportunity for all. We adhere to merit-based hiring practices, ensuring that all employment decisions are made based on qualifications, skills, and ability to perform the job, without preference or consideration of factors unrelated to job performance. 

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Aretum complies with all applicable federal, state, and local employment laws. 

We are proud to support our nation’s veterans and military families, providing career opportunities that honor their service and experience. 

If you require reasonable accommodation during the hiring process due to a disability, please contact [email protected] for assistance. 

Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled 

U.S. Work Authorization

Applicants must be U.S. citizens or currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. This position supports a federal government contract and requires the ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust or Suitability Determination, depending on the agency’s background investigation requirements. Sponsorship is not available. 

• Salary Range: $120,000–$142,000 annually. Final compensation will be determined based on factors including education, experience, qualifications, skills, and applicable contract requirements.
• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)   

• Retirement Plan (401k)  

• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)   

• Paid Time Off  

• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)   

• Short Term & Long-Term Disability   

• Training & Development