Principal Software Engineer

We prefer D.C. Metro area Candidates with U.S. Citizenship or a Green Card due to the clearance requirements on federal contracts.

Areeva Solutions is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical direction for modernization efforts at Federal Student Aid (FSA). This is a principal-level, hands-on advisory role for an individual with extensive experience leading the design and delivery of large, production-scale software systems across both application development and cloud/platform infrastructure. The role supports a complex ecosystem of systems serving millions of borrowers and applicants, working across multiple engineering teams and vendors.

The ideal candidate is a highly technical, product-minded engineering leader who can: engage directly with engineers, architects, and product teams; evaluate trade-offs; shape architecture and platform decisions; set engineering standards; and communicate strategy clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders. The right person can define a credible cloud-native future state for FSA’s systems, work alongside existing teams to get there incrementally, and apply modern product and platform engineering practices in a federal environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide principal-level technical leadership across FSA engineering teams and vendors, with a focus on software architecture, platform strategy, and engineering execution quality.
• Define a credible cloud-native target-state architecture spanning applications and platform infrastructure (containerized workloads, managed cloud services, Infrastructure as Code), and guide teams through incremental migration from legacy systems.
• Partner with the Program Delivery Manager and engineering teams on all technical aspects of delivery — developing practical modernization approaches, identifying decomposition strategies for legacy systems, and sequencing work to deliver value incrementally.
• Lead architecture and design reviews for applications, APIs, data flows, and platform components; provide actionable feedback grounded in modern engineering practices.
• Advise on developer tooling, CI/CD pipelines, environment provisioning, and release practices to shorten delivery cycles and raise release confidence across vendor teams.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards across teams — code quality, automated testing, API design, secure development, observability, SLOs, and production operations — and help FSA measure adherence.
• Mentor senior engineers, architects, and tech leads across multiple vendor teams; raise the collective engineering bar without direct authority.
• Advise leadership on technical decisions (e.g., build vs. buy, platform vs. custom, vendor integration strategy, engineering capability gaps).
• Identify technical risks and delivery constraints early; contribute engineering-informed analysis to the program risk register alongside PM and governance teams.
• Serve as the senior engineering voice in governance forums (e.g., Change Control Board, Technical Review Board); help the government interpret agile and engineering metrics, and support requirements traceability across the RTM.
• Collaborate with security, compliance, and DevOps/SRE stakeholders to ensure systems meet federal cybersecurity and privacy requirements (NIST RMF, MITCR, Section 508), including secure architecture, PII/CUI handling, vulnerability management, and production reliability.
• Partner with product, design, and program teams to keep engineering aligned with the target-state vision, design system standards, accessibility, and user-centered goals; support technical continuity through phase-in/phase-out transitions.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years in software engineering, with significant time in staff/principal engineer, architect, or technical leadership roles — preferably in federal or large-scale program environments.
• Track record of leading the design and delivery of large, production-scale software systems, with demonstrated technical leadership across both application development and cloud/platform infrastructure.
• Experience defining target-state architectures and leading incremental modernization of legacy systems, balancing technical ambition with operational risk and delivery constraints.
• Deep, current fluency in modern engineering practices and platforms: APIs/microservices, distributed systems, AWS or Azure, containers/Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and secure software delivery.
• Retains hands-on technical depth — able to read code, interrogate designs and pipelines at the implementation level, and assess vendor engineering quality directly, while operating in an advisory (non-delivery) capacity.
• Proven ability to collaborate with product managers, designers, and engineers in product-based organizations, and to mentor senior engineers across teams.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts and tradeoffs to non-technical audiences and senior leadership.

Preferred Skills

• Track record of leading digital modernization in brownfield/legacy environments within government or highly regulated settings. Familiarity with FSA systems, federal student aid processes, or similar mission-critical public service systems is a plus.
• Experience within or alongside DevOps/SRE or platform engineering teams; familiarity with FedRAMP-authorized cloud services and the ATO implications of platform choices.
• Experience designing secure systems in regulated environments, including privacy, identity, compliance, and federal technology policies.
• Ability to influence without authority and earn trust across senior engineers, product leaders, vendors, and government stakeholders.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience). Relevant certifications (e.g., AWS/Azure architect, CISSP, TOGAF) preferred, but engineering depth matters more than credentials.

Additional Requirements

• For candidates located in the DMV area, we can offer remote work flexibility at this time; however, this may transition to a hybrid model in the future.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust Clearance and pass a drug and background check.
• Areeva Solutions, LLC. participates in the E-Verify program as required by law.
• Compensation will be based on experience, skills, and expertise, and will fall within the provided range.

Job Type

W2 -Full-time

Benefits

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• AD&D insurance
• Dental insurance
• Disability insurance
• Flexible schedule
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $140,000.00 - $170,000.00 per year

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Education

* Bachelor's (Required)

Experience

* Principal Software Engineer : 9 years (Required)

Location

* Washington, DC 20202 (Required)

Ability to Commute

* Washington, DC 20202 (Required)

Willingness to travel

* 25% (Required)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Washington, DC 20202