Junior software engineer Jobs in Washington, DC

Junior Software Engineer – Smart Mobility

Are you interested in improving and shaping the transportation industry with a group of intelligent and motivated individuals? Consider joining the Leidos team operating the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)’s Saxton Transportation Operations Laboratory (STOL), a USDOT research lab focused on the improvement of transportation safety, operations, and mobility impacts. STOL champions the integration of emerging technologies such as cooperative driving automation (CDA) and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) to revolutionize transportation.

Learn about STOL here:

Location: This role will be expected to work full-time at the customer site in McLean, VA.

Candidates MUST:

Be US Citizens or Green Card Holders who are currently in the United States for the current three consecutive years and be eligible for a Public Trust Clearance.

Role Overview:

Leidos is seeking a Junior Software Engineer – Smart Mobility to join a highly successful team in researching and developing automated transportation technologies to shape the future of transportation. We are looking for someone who is motivated by variety, thrives in a challenging environment, seeks professional growth, and will be a key part of a team developing and extending a variety of applications and components to improve results that impact the transportation industry.
The successful candidate will engage in various projects aiming to develop and optimize the use of advanced technologies (such as autonomous vehicles (AVs), connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), and intelligent transportation systems (ITS)) to improve the safety and operation of multimodal transportation systems.

Primary Responsibilities:

● Participate in the full software development lifecycle for software tools, including requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (including unit tests and integration tests), release, and maintenance.
● Develop software tools that support the safety evaluation of autonomous vehicles (AVs).
● Play a key role in maintaining and enhancing the operation of the US Department of Transportations (USDOT) open-source connected and automated vehicle tools, such as CARMA Platform, CARMA Messenger, and V2XHub.
● Collaborate with the broader software team to break down software development efforts into clear and manageable tasks.
● Research intelligent transportation systems (ITS) industry trends, assess the current state of relevant technologies, identify gaps, and help prioritize tool development to best support industry needs.
● Provide constructive feedback on GitHub Pull Requests made by other team members to help them improve their implementation skills, while also being open to feedback on your own code contributions.
● Support both the internal development team and external users of our open-source software by developing clear and helpful documentation throughout all phases of the development process, including detailed design documents, helpful/concise comments within developed code, and informative descriptions in generated GitHub Pull Requests and Issues.
● Interact with customer representatives as needed throughout a project’s lifecycle to provide updates related to software design, development, and testing.
● Use open-source simulation tools to test and evaluate ITS applications and use cases.

Required Qualifications:

● A Master’s degree in computer science, engineering, or other science discipline with 1-2 years of relevant experience, OR a Bachelor’s degree with 2-4 years of relevant experience.
● Strong interest in working with emerging technologies and shaping the future of transportation.
● Hands-on experience developing, testing, and troubleshooting software written in Python and C++ in a Linux environment.
● Background with automation or robotics principles.
● Understanding of mathematical fundamentals, including geometry, linear algebra, probability, and statistics.
● Prior experience with developing software leveraging Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 using either Python or C++.
● Understanding of software quality control techniques and practices (automated unit testing, continuous integration, etc.).
● Experience with Git for software version control.
● Strong written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate across diverse teams.
● Familiarity with one or more robotics concepts such as perception, motion planning, and control.
● Ability to work in a fast-paced, research-oriented environment with travel up to 10% for stakeholder engagement, testing, and site visits.
● Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance (which includes three years of immediate residency in the US).
● All applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States without company sponsorship.

Preferred Qualifications:

● Strong understanding of vehicle kinematics and dynamics modeling.
● Experience building or leveraging perception algorithms and software libraries.
● Experience deploying robotics platforms in the real world and/or in simulation.
● Experience developing in an Agile framework using toolsets such as JIRA and Confluence.
● Familiarity with simulation environments such as CARLA.
● Experience developing and executing simulations in MATLAB/Simulink.
● Self-motivated with a demonstrated ability to explore new tools, frameworks, and techniques.

Anticipated salary range for this role is $80,000-$100,000

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 30, 2025

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:

Pay Range $57,850.00 - $104,575.00

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.