This is a U.S. based position. All of the programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S.
Who we are:
Raft ( is a customer-obsessed non-traditional small business with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development, with headquarters in Reston, VA. Our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans.
We’re looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer to support our customers and join our passionate team of high-impact problem solvers.
About the role:
As a Staff Software Engineer , you are a beacon of knowledge and a go-to person for complex challenges. Your role is pivotal in decision-making processes, high-level architecture designs, and setting the course for technical excellence within teams. You're expected to think critically, solve intricate problems, and mentor Senior and below Engineers.
Raft is building a real-time data platform for the Department of Defense (DoD), aimed at enhancing operators' awareness of critical events, including instances like the Chinese balloon and Cessna over the White House incidents. Central to this data platform is the aggregation of real-time data from over 750 sensors. This data is subsequently enriched, rendered queryable, and ultimately presented as a common operational picture to empower operators in making time critical and pertinent decisions. Our system efficiently handles the processing of over a billion events daily, all achieved with millisecond-level latency. Key technologies include Kafka, Kafka Streams, Pinot, Java, Scala, and Kubernetes. Your involvement in this role will encompass hands-on collaboration with a team of accomplished individuals, collectively striving towards excellence.
What you will do:
- Build data infrastructure and platforms using streaming frameworks such as Apache Kafka, Flink, and Kafka Streams
- Build Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) pipelines to enable comprehensive data operations
- Leverage software engineering principles to architect, develop, and implement large scale streaming applications
What we are looking for:
- 7+ years of relevant hands-on industry experience
- Experience with building and managing fault-tolerant, data-intensive platforms using popular streaming technologies such as Kafka, Pinot, or Flink
- Experience with large-scale relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch to handle low-latency requirements
- Experience in data management including ETL processing, data governance, and data storage
- Experience with building and releasing software in cloud-native environments
- Experience using a variety of package managers/dependency managers including Maven, Gradle, and NPM
- Deep knowledge of software design and architecture patterns
- Ability to obtain a Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment with Raft
Highly preferred:
- Experience with Kubernetes
- Experience with monitoring (i.e. Prometheus, Grafana) and logging (i.e. Fluentbit, Kibana, Loki) solutions in cloud-native environments
- Solid understanding of Helm Charts
- Experience or knowledge of service mesh technologies, such as Istio
- Experience with supporting enterprise Cloud applications or infrastructure
- Experience in automation languages like Python or GoLang
Clearance Requirements:
- Active Secret clearance
Work Type:
- Hybrid - Washington, D.C.
- May require up to 25% on-site
- May require up to 25% travel
Salary Range:
- $130,000 - $210,000
- The determination of compensation is predicated upon a candidate's comprehensive experience, demonstrated skill, and proven abilities
What we will offer you:
- Highly competitive salary
- Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
- 401(k) and company match
- Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
- Education & training benefits
- Annual budget for your tech/gadgets needs
- Monthly box of yummy snacks to eat while doing meaningful work
- Remote, hybrid, and flexible work options
- Team off-site in fun places!
- Generous Referral Bonuses
- And More!
We’re an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.
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