Software Modernization Engineer

The Aerospace Corporation is the trusted partner to the nation’s space programs, solving the hardest problems and providing unmatched technical expertise. As the operator of a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), we are broadly engaged across all aspects of space— delivering innovative solutions that span satellite, launch, ground, and cyber systems for defense, civil and commercial customers. When you join our team, you’ll be part of a special collection of problem solvers, thought leaders, and innovators. Join us and take your place in space. The Information Systems and Cyber Division (ISCD) integrates modern software technologies—including elastic compute clouds, containerization, microservices, real-time operating systems, and visualization frameworks—with expertise in cyber security, software architecture, software engineering, data science, artificial intelligence, process improvement, and software development to deliver resilient, high‑performance software systems for Intelligence Community, DoD, and civilian customers. The Software Tools & Assurance Department advances modern software engineering and digital engineering practices to deliver responsive and reliable mission software, with a focus on cloud platforms, microservices, workflow automation, and system modernization. **Work Model** - This is a full-time position based in El Segundo, CA. **What You’ll Be Doing** - **Technical & Architecture Leadership**: Provide high-level software systems engineering and architectural direction for complex, large-scale applications across space, ground, and launch domains. - **Software Modernization:** Lead the evolution of legacy monolithic architectures into modern, resilient, microservices-based configurations deployed across cloud and virtualized environments. - **Cloud-Native & Containerization Strategy**: Lead rigorous technical trade studies and rapid prototyping efforts to evaluate and securely implement emerging cloud-native, containerization, and orchestration technologies. - **Stakeholder & Customer Interfacing**: Serve as a core technical liaison, translating high-level customer mission objectives into actionable architectural milestones, driving alignment across program managers, engineering teams, and external stakeholders. - **Culture of Innovation**: Champion modern software development methodologies, driving positive change by introducing new commercial perspectives, challenging established practices, and mentoring junior engineers. **What You Need to be Successful – Engineering Specialist – Software Architecture Engineering & Cloud Computing Architecture** *Minimum Requirements:* - Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a STEM related field. - Six or more years of experience with increasing responsibility in software engineering or software architecture. - Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent tasks and to quickly learn and adapt to new software technologies and languages. - Experience in software engineering, full lifecycle development, and advanced problem solving. - Experience in at least one of the following areas: - Modernizing legacy systems into unified, maintainable, automated software applications - Model-based systems engineering and complex systems modeling - Designing and maintaining backend services and REST APIs using modern frameworks with integrations across enterprise services, workflow systems, and cloud environments - AI/ML applications, including large language models (LLM), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or NLP - Building or extending data ingestion pipelines — including large-scale content ingestion, metadata extraction, change detection, indexing, and automated job monitoring - Cloud and microservices architecture, including managed services for compute, storage, and monitoring - Experience integrating systems across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments, including Linux-based deployments and enterprise search ecosystems - Ag…