Principal Engineering Lead | Advanced Data & AI Platforms

Why You’ll Actually Care

District Partners is partnering with a rapidly growing technology organization supporting large-scale national security and mission-critical modernization initiatives across the federal sector. The company is in a major expansion phase as demand increases for scalable AI-enabled platforms, distributed data systems, and modern engineering capabilities capable of operating in highly complex environments.

Several high-visibility programs are moving from prototype and experimentation phases into long-term enterprise deployment, creating pressure to mature engineering standards, accelerate platform scalability, and improve how technical teams deliver across secure environments. Leadership is looking for someone who can bring both architectural depth and operational credibility to help guide engineering organizations through that next phase of growth.

This role exists because the organization needs a senior technical leader who can influence engineering direction while remaining hands-on enough to solve difficult implementation challenges. The person stepping into this role will help shape platform strategy, mentor high-performing engineers, and serve as a trusted technical voice with senior government stakeholders.

If you enjoy building systems that operate at meaningful scale, influencing technical direction across multiple teams, and solving problems where the stakes are real, this environment offers significant visibility and impact.

The Basics

• Full-time direct hire
• Hybrid 3-4 days onsite work model in the Northern Virginia metro area (will pay relocation expenses)
• Active TS/SCI clearance required
• Compensation package targeting approximately $200,000-$270,000+ total value depending on experience
• High-impact engineering leadership role supporting mission-critical programs
• Opportunity to influence enterprise architecture, AI strategy, and platform modernization initiatives
• Flexibility on national/international travel up to 30%

What You’ll Do

• Leading cross-functional engineering efforts focused on scalable cloud-native applications, distributed systems, and advanced data platforms and presenting product to the client; must be comfortable in a customer-facing environment
• Serving as a senior technical advisor to both internal leadership and external mission stakeholders
• Driving architectural strategy for enterprise deployments operating in secure and highly regulated environments
• Guiding engineering teams through modernization initiatives involving AI/ML, large-scale data processing, and platform scalability
• Designing reusable frameworks, shared services, integrations, and modular engineering patterns leveraged across multiple teams
• Influencing tooling decisions, deployment strategies, and engineering best practices across a growing technical organization
• Supporting development and deployment pipelines across containerized and Kubernetes-based environments
• Helping mature CI/CD standards, infrastructure automation, and operational resilience practices
• Contributing to AI/ML platform strategy including model deployment workflows, data pipelines, and scalable inference environments
• Mentoring senior engineers and helping elevate engineering maturity across distributed teams

Environment

This is a highly technical, fast-moving environment where engineering teams are solving complex problems that do not always have predefined answers. The organization values builders and problem-solvers over purely process-oriented leadership. Teams are balancing aggressive delivery expectations, evolving mission priorities, and emerging technologies simultaneously.

You will walk into an environment where some systems are scaling rapidly while engineering standards and long-term platform consistency are still evolving. There is strong executive support for modernization efforts, but technical leaders are expected to operate with autonomy and make decisions in ambiguous situations.

This is not a maintenance-focused leadership role. The expectation is that this person can move comfortably between executive conversations, architectural decision-making, and hands-on engineering execution when needed.

What You'll Have

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with demonstrated leadership across enterprise-scale environments
• Experience leading engineering teams delivering complex applications or platforms in secure or regulated environments
• Strong background building distributed systems, cloud-native applications, and scalable platform architectures
• Experience with modern CI/CD practices, container orchestration, and infrastructure automation
• Strong understanding of software architecture patterns, reusable design principles, and platform scalability strategies
• Experience communicating complex technical concepts to both engineering and executive stakeholders
• Hands-on experience with modern programming languages and enterprise application development
• Exposure to AI/ML systems, data engineering workflows, or large-scale analytics platforms
• Experience supporting classified or highly secure environments strongly preferred
• Active TS/SCI clearance required; STEM degree also required

A Few Things Worth Knowing

• This role sits close to executive leadership and mission stakeholders with significant visibility across programs
• The engineering organization is investing heavily in AI-enabled systems, modern data infrastructure, and long-term platform scalability
• Candidates who enjoy influencing technical direction while remaining hands-on tend to thrive here
• There is substantial opportunity to shape engineering culture, standards, and architectural direction
• Ideal for technical leaders who enjoy solving difficult problems, mentoring strong engineers, and building systems that operate at enterprise scale and working with the end client directly is critical