Development Engineer

Nokia Federal Solutions (NFS) is seeking a highly experienced Development Engineer to design, develop, and maintain mission-critical software systems supporting U.S. Government and defense customers. This role focuses on building high-performance, reliable software—often within real-time and distributed environments—while providing technical leadership and mentorship within the engineering organization.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in systems programming, architecture design, and large-scale software delivery, with the ability to balance rapid innovation with long-term maintainability and compliance requirements.

At Nokia Federal Solutions (NFS), we build scalable, secure, and resilient networks that support critical government missions. As a dedicated U.S. entity of Nokia, NFS delivers advanced networking and software solutions to U.S. civil, defense, and intelligence customers. Backed by over a century of innovation, our engineers work on complex, real-world challenges where performance, reliability, and security are paramount.

As a Development Engineer, you will contribute across the full software lifecycle—from architecture and design through implementation, testing, deployment, and long-term support—while collaborating with cross-functional teams and mentoring fellow engineers.

• Develop and maintain software running or real-time operating systems (RTOS) and Linux-based platforms, including design, coding, testing, and ongoing maintenance.
• Design and own the architecture of functional software modules, ensuring performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Implement and execute unit testing for the features and systems you develop.
• Provide technical support and maintenance for deployed software, including troubleshooting and issue resolution.
• Serve as a technical mentor, guiding junior engineers and contributing to best practices across the team.
• Participate in design reviews and contribute to technical roadmaps and long-term architectural decisions.

Note:
This position is only open to U.S. citizens, who can obtain at least a Secret level security clearance, given the nature of our customer.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience. Degrees in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering are strongly preferred; a Master's degree is a plus.
• 15+ years of industry experience designing, developing, and delivering large-scale, production-quality software systems (experience level may be flexible for exceptional candidates).
• Expert-level programming skills in C, C++, and/or Go, with deep knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and system design.
• Proven experience leading the architecture, design, and implementation of complex, high-performance, and highly available systems.
• Strong debugging skills across the full software stack, including distributed, multithreaded, and real-time environments.
• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with cross-functional engineering, product, and systems teams.

• Deep understanding of IP networking protocols and network architectures.
• Extensive experience with Linux-based systems and real-time operating systems (RTOS).
• Hands-on experience designing and implementing network and control plane protocols.
• Demonstrated ownership of control plane or data plane software, including responsibility for architecture, performance, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
• Wireless and telecom domain expertise, including development related to 4G/5G Core and protocols such as GTP, RADIUS, Diameter, charging protocols, IP, and routing protocols.
• Experience leveraging AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Windsurf, Augment, Copilot, or similar) to improve productivity, accelerate debugging, enhance code quality, and explore architectures.
• Ability to define best practices and guardrails for responsible and effective use of AI tools in a production engineering environment.
• Proven technical leadership, including mentoring senior engineers, leading design reviews, influencing technical direction, and driving cross-team initiatives.
• Strong judgment in balancing rapid…