Full Stack Software Engineer, Senior

About the Company

ExTrac is a decision intelligence company serving governments, defence organisations, financial institutions, and corporations operating in complex and rapidly changing environments. The company combines curated data sources, domain-specific AI, and human expertise to turn large volumes of information into clear, actionable insights.

ExTrac aims to become a trusted analytical resource for organisations navigating geopolitical uncertainty, strategic opportunities, and risks.

About the Role

ExTrac is seeking a Senior Software Engineer based in the Washington, DC area to work across backend services and cloud infrastructure. This is a generalist engineering role involving the development and operation of Go and Python services, cloud infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and production systems.

You will work closely with the US infrastructure team, the UK backend team, analysts, and product managers to deliver reliable and secure software. The role offers opportunities to take ownership of engineering workstreams, contribute to architectural decisions, and help shape the growing US Engineering team.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain AWS infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform and CloudFormation, following established standards and conventions.
• Deploy, scale, and troubleshoot containerised production workloads using Docker, Kubernetes, and Argo.
• Develop and improve CI/CD pipelines to support frequent and reliable feature delivery across multiple environments.
• Take ownership of workstreams from the US infrastructure roadmap and manage them through to completion.
• Define requirements with your technical lead, prepare technical designs, and deliver well-scoped engineering solutions to production.
• Develop and maintain Go and Python microservices supporting data collection, processing, and querying.
• Design and maintain APIs used by internal teams and customers.
• Participate in system design and architecture discussions, contributing practical insights from systems you have built and operated.
• Implement monitoring and observability using tools such as Prometheus and Grafana to identify issues affecting latency, cost, and reliability.
• Participate in incident response and post-incident reviews, translating findings into improvements that prevent recurring issues.
• Implement and maintain infrastructure and application controls supporting US compliance frameworks, including FedRAMP and CMMC.
• Maintain strong security practices and identify technical debt that requires attention.
• Provide out-of-hours incident support as part of an on-call rota.
• Work with the Lead DevOps Engineer on US infrastructure priorities.
• Collaborate with the UK backend team through code reviews, technical discussions, and shared delivery across time zones.
• Work with analysts and product managers to understand product requirements and translate practical user feedback into system improvements.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience across backend development and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience owning and delivering features end to end in production environments.
• Proficiency in developing microservices using Go or Python.
• Hands-on experience with AWS and infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and automating deployment workflows.
• Production experience working with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, databases, and software engineering patterns.
• Familiarity with monitoring, logging, and observability tools such as Prometheus and Grafana.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including clear technical writing.
• Ability to work effectively with a distributed team based in the UK.
• Ability to maintain regular working-hour overlap with the UK team, such as US Eastern mornings.
• Ability to take ownership of engineering workstreams, identify trade-offs and risks, and deliver with limited supervision.
• Applicants must be US nationals residing in the United States due to the compliance requirements of the US customers supported by this role.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with compliance frameworks such as FedRAMP or CMMC.
• Experience working with Elasticsearch and PostgreSQL.
• Experience operating multi-tenant systems where data isolation is a critical requirement.
• Background in software development for defence, government, or other compliance-constrained environments.
• Location in Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, or Pennsylvania.

Work Location and Arrangement

This is a remote position for candidates located on the US East Coast. Occasional travel to the Washington, DC area is required for collaborative working sessions with other East Coast colleagues.

Career Development

The role provides opportunities to develop expertise across backend services and cloud infrastructure, with responsibilities shaped by the needs of the business. As part of the growing US Engineering team, you will have the opportunity to influence how the team operates and develops.

Strong performance can lead to broader ownership, greater involvement in architectural decisions, and a potential path toward a Lead Engineer role within a team or technical specialism. ExTrac values individual contributor and management career paths equally; taking on direct reports is not required for career progression.

Interview Process

• Initial introductory interview – 30 minutes.
• Technical assessment covering coding and system design – 1.5 hours.
• Competency-based interview with the Hiring Manager – 30 minutes.
• Interview with the CTO – 30 minutes.

Salary and Benefits

• Salary based on skills and experience.
• Participation in the Employee Stock Options Programme.
• Medical health insurance and a 401(k) plan.
• $500 annual education budget, with higher-cost items such as conferences covered subject to manager approval.
• 33 days of leave per year, inclusive of national holidays

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Equal Employment Opportunity

ExTrac AI provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The company is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcomes individuals from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.

Recruitment Process and Use of AI

ExTrac AI is committed to a fair and transparent hiring process and confirms that this advertisement represents an active, existing vacancy within the organization. AI-driven tools may be used to assist the recruitment team with screening, assessing, and selecting candidates. All final hiring decisions are made by a member of the ExTrac team.