Lead Software Engineer

About the role

Your greatest work is ahead!

Leidos’ Defense Sector – Directed Energy Division in Albuquerque, NM is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to drive software development for a variety of electro-mechanical-optical experiments on an applied R&D contract. You will work alongside a multi-disciplinary team, collaborating with Government researchers on hands-on experiments primarily in a laboratory. As a lead engineer on the team, you will own significant parts of the software behind testbed control, data acquisition, and optical tracking, and help guide the work of junior engineers.

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, integration, and testing of C/C++ software for testbeds, test equipment, and optical tracking systems in a Linux development environment.
• Translate test objectives from Government researchers into software requirements and architecture for electro-mechanical-optical experiments, and develop software control solutions.
• Develop real-time and embedded software, including single board computer (SBC) applications and hardware I/O interfaces to mechanical, electro-optical, and sensor equipment.
• Develop and maintain data acquisition, data reduction, and analysis tools, including operator interfaces and MATLAB/Simulink models where applicable.
• Drive continuous improvement of the team’s software test and validation practices, DevOps/SecDevOps pipelines, and engineering workflows.
• Support the design, buildup, calibration, and field testing of custom testbeds and test equipment; troubleshoot integrated hardware, software, and network issues; and turn field test results into software enhancements.
• Serve as technical lead for small projects, mentoring junior engineers and peer-reviewing code and designs for quality, maintainability, and adherence to best practices.
• Communicate technical progress, risks, and solutions directly to Government customers and project stakeholders.
• The ideal candidate works independently as well as with a team, learns new skills quickly, communicates clearly, and is organized, detail-oriented, and self-motivated.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering with 4+ years of relevant experience, or a Master’s degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering with 2+ years of relevant experience.
• Hands-on software engineering and development experience.
• Professional experience writing C/C++ software in a Linux system development environment.
• Experience with MATLAB/Simulink.
• U.S. citizenship required, with the ability to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with controls engineering.
• Experience with software architecture, software test and validation, and DevOps/SecDevOps practices.
• Experience with embedded systems development, real-time environment programming, and single board computer (SBC) development.
• Experience with mechanical equipment hardware I/O, testbed design, data acquisition development, and field testing.
• Experience with UI/UX development and network configuration and support.
• Knowledge of military radar, tracking, and target aimpoint correlation.
• A link (e.g., GitHub) to an example C++ program of your own design, included with your application. Please share only personal or open-source work, not proprietary, export-controlled, or classified code.

NKE

• If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling.
• At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it.
• We're not hiring followers.
• We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail.
• Step 10 is ancient history.
• We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting: October 2, 2026

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range $87,100.00 - $157,450.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.