Systems Software Engineer – Database Engineering & Core Services

Mantis Security is seeking software engineers with systems programming expertise and a strong background in database engineering. This role focuses on understanding how database engines and core services work internally, reading source code, examining network communications, and modifying software to support mission requirements. Candidates should be able to move beyond queries, schemas, and application interfaces to understand how a database processes requests, exchanges data, and interacts with other components. The work involves tracing behavior through unfamiliar codebases and protocols, identifying where changes belong, and understanding their effects across an integrated technology stack. This role is full time on-site. What You’ll Do Develop, maintain, test, and deploy secure, scalable applications and services using C, C++, Rust, Go, Java, Python, or Node.js. Apply systems programming principles, particularly in C, C++, and Rust, to develop performant and reliable software components. Develop software supporting process creation, monitoring, control, and inter-process communication. Build concurrent and multithreaded applications using appropriate synchronization, signal handling, memory management, and resource-control techniques. Design, implement, and troubleshoot networked applications using sockets, client-server architectures, and applicable network protocols. Analyze database engine source code, communication protocols, request and response formats, serialization, and packet layouts to support development and integration. Trace requests through database engine code to identify processing logic, integration points, and the effects of proposed modifications. Develop relational data-storage solutions using Structured Query Language (SQL), including data modeling, query development, performance tuning, and access control. Develop and integrate graph database solutions supporting relationship-based data modeling, analysis, and retrieval. Work across relational databases, graph databases, object storage, and search/indexing engines, including technologies such as PostgreSQL, Redis, RxDB, Neo4j, Amazon S3, and Elasticsearch. Refactor and modernize existing services, including transitioning functionality from Python to other implementation languages where appropriate. Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision, configure, and manage infrastructure through repeatable, version-controlled workflows. Deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot cloud-hosted software, including dependencies on compute, storage, networking, identity, and security services. Integrate applications with identity providers to support authentication, authorization, federation, single sign-on, and identity-aware access control. Implement OpenID Connect (OIDC) integrations, including token validation, claims processing, client registration, redirect flows, session management, and secure API access. Incorporate Zero Trust Architecture principles into software designs, including interactions among policy decision, administration, information, and enforcement components. Collaborate with cybersecurity, infrastructure, data, and mission stakeholders to integrate security controls, cryptographic protections, logging, monitoring, and auditability throughout the software development lifecycle. Produce and maintain software designs, interface specifications, deployment procedures, configuration baselines, security implementation details, and operational support materials. Basic Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field such as engineering or mathematics. Relevant fields include Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, and Information Systems. Typical experience: 10 years of professional software engineering experience. Active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance with the ability to obtain a Counterintelligence (CI) Polygraph. Prior experience supporting the Intelligence Community. Experience applying programming concepts in a professional or academic setting. Experience applying modern software development methodologies, such as Agile, DevOps, or DevSecOps, in a professional or academic setting. Hands-on systems programming experience in one or more of C, C++, or Rust, with the ability to work across additional languages and runtimes as needed. Experience with operating-system interfaces, process management, inter-process communication, concurrency, and multithreaded application development. Understanding of synchronization primitives, signal handling, memory management, and resource management. Experience developing or troubleshooting socket-based applications and client-server communications. Experience with database engine internals, network protocol development, or comparable source-code and low-level systems analysis. Ability to navigate unfamiliar source code, trace execution and data flows, and assess how changes affect performance, interoperability, concurrency, and security. Experience with relational database design, SQL, query optimization, and database access controls. Understanding of graph database concepts and their application to relationship-based data. Experience developing infrastructure automation and deploying or supporting software in cloud environments. Experience integrating applications with identity services using OIDC and applying authentication and authorization controls. Understanding of Zero Trust Architecture concepts, including Policy Decision Points (PDPs), Policy Administration Points (PAPs), Policy Information Points (PIPs), and Policy Enforcement Points (PEPs). Strong troubleshooting, technical documentation, and collaboration skills. Agile Developer certification or Certified Scrum Developer certification. CompTIA Security+ or higher-level cybersecurity certification. We are looking for experienced engineers who want to understand how systems work, can reason through complex code and communications, and are comfortable making changes below the application layer. Candidates who meet the basic qualifications do not need experience with every technology listed under desired qualifications. Depth in systems programming and database engineering, paired with the ability to learn adjacent technologies, is what matters most. Desired Qualifications Advanced education: Master’s degree in a quantitative field such as engineering or mathematics. Relevant fields include Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, and Information Systems. Database engineering: Experience with PostgreSQL and Neo4j, including database design, administration, performance optimization, and application integration. Protocol engineering: Experience interpreting packet captures, working with binary message formats, developing protocol parsers, or modifying database clients, drivers, extensions, or engine code. Infrastructure automation: Experience using Terraform and Ansible for cloud infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, and application deployment. Cloud and platform engineering: Experience deploying and maintaining applications and infrastructure in Amazon Web Services (AWS), including AWS GovCloud, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, and environments subject to Department of Defense Impact Level 5 requirements. Identity platforms: Experience with PingFederate, Keycloak, Radiant Logic, SailPoint, Secret Server, or Okta; experience migrating identity providers and adapting application code is especially useful. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): Experience implementing certificate lifecycle management, key management, certificate validation, and cryptographic service integrations. Cryptographic interfaces: Experience using PKCS #11 to integrate applications with cryptographic tokens, Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), or other secure key-storage mechanisms. Modern cryptography: Experience implementing, evaluating, or integrating cryptographic algorithms, including Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM). Data protection and service integration: Experience with Trusted Data Format (TDF), Go-based security services, enterprise service integration, or serialization technologies such as Protocol Buffers.