Software Developer Defence Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Who we are:

For more than 70 years, NATO's mission has been to preserve peace and security in the Alliance for nearly one billion citizens. The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) and its predecessors have worked tirelessly in providing the means that enable the connectedness and togetherness that keep our Alliance strong. We are the NCI Agency, a team of 3000 civilian and military staff in 29 locations throughout Europe, North America and Asia. 

Our technology and cyber experts allow NATO to conduct critical operations, protect NATO's airspace, make data-driven decisions, defend against cyber-attacks, secure NATO networks and maintain superiority in space. This is all possible because of our greatest force, our people. In order to keep this edge we aim to hire, train and retain the very best staff. 

Our staff members represent both the diversity and unity of our Alliance. When you join the NCI Agency, you will be part of an organization where you can contribute authentically to the mission and purpose of NATO and help us keep our technological edge. 

About the job:

Based in The Hague, Netherlands you will join the Agency as we embark on a journey to transform our IT services to support NATO's Digital Endeavour. You will join The Command and Control Centre (C2C) which is responsible for planning and executing all lifecycle management activities (design, transition and operations) for Joint/Maritime/Land C2 services (including: subject matter expertise; research and development; software engineering; acquisition; operations and maintenance and disposal) in the following C2 Community of Interest (COI) technical service areas: Land, Maritime, Joint, Special Operations, Logistics, Medical, Military Engineering, Military Messaging, Nuclear, CBRN, Military Messaging, Situational Awareness, Operations Planning and Collective Training and Exercise Support (CTX).

We're looking for 3 Full-stack Engineers who thrive on solving complex problems, designing robust systems, and leading engineering excellence. This is a senior-level role where you'll take ownership of technical decisions, mentor others, and shape how we deliver software across the organization.

As a senior engineer, you'll combine hands-on coding with architectural leadership, ensuring our systems are secure, scalable, and future-ready. You'll champion best practices, bring new technologies to the table, and influence both the codebase and the culture.

We are looking for driven and enthusiastic Full Stack Engineer-Defence DevSecOps who will take on the likes of the following duties and responsibilities:

Technical leadership:

• Own the end-to-end software development lifecycle, from architecture and design to deployment and operations.

• Lead the design of medium- to large-scale, enterprise-level systems, balancing performance, reliability, and maintainability.

• Guide teams in applying modern engineering practices, including microservices, APIs, CI/CD, and DevSecOps.

• Mentor and coach engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and knowledge-sharing.

Hands-on engineering:

• Write and review production-quality code in modern languages such as C#, Java, Python, or Go.

• Architect and implement microservices and event-driven systems using APIs (REST, GraphQL, gRPC).

• Deploy and operate solutions on operational platforms (Azure, Windows/Linux servers).

• Leverage containerisation and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) to build resilient and scalable services.

• Implement observability practices (monitoring, logging, tracing) to ensure system reliability.

Innovation & improvement

• Evaluate and introduce new tools, frameworks, and practices that improve productivity, scalability, or security.

• Collaborate with product and business stakeholders to turn complex requirements into elegant and robust solutions.

• Contribute to architecture governance, coding standards, and long-term technical strategy.

For a full list of duties, please review the job description on the NCI Agency career site: Full Stack Engineer-Defence DevSecOps

**Internally this positon is known as Senior Software Engineer.

About you:

The valuable knowledge and experience that you bring to this role are:

A minimum requirement of a Bachelor's degree at a nationally recognised/certified University in a related discipline and 3 years post-related experience. Or exceptionally, the lack of a university degree may be compensated by the demonstration of a candidate's particular abilities or experience that is/are of interest to NCI Agency, that is, at least 10 years extensive and progressive expertise in duties related to the function of the post. 

Ideally, you will possess the following expertise:

• 5+ years of professional software development, with at least 2 years in a senior/lead role.

• Proven experience in architecting and developing enterprise ready and cloud-native applications.

• Strong proficiency in one or more modern programming languages (C#, Java, Python, Go, TypeScript).

• Deep understanding of virtual infrastructure and cloud platforms (VMWare, AWS, Azure) and associated services.

• Expertise in containerisation (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).

• Solid grasp of API design and distributed systems.

• Experience with DevSecOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure automation.

• Strong database skills with SQL and NoSQL systems.

• Track record of leading technical decisions, mentoring engineers, and influencing architecture.

Nice-to-have (differentiators)

• Experience with event streaming platforms (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar).

• Knowledge of infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible).

• Exposure to machine learning pipelines or AI-enabled applications.

• Expertise in observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).

• Background in security-first design and compliance-driven environments.

Why join our team!?

• Impact at scale: Design and build systems that matter.

• Influence: Your decisions will shape our architecture and engineering standards.

• Growth: Stay on the edge of cloud-native, microservices, and DevSecOps practices.

• Collaboration: Work with skilled engineers who value technical excellence and innovation.

• Autonomy: Lead initiatives, propose improvements, and drive change.

This is more than just a coding role!-it's a chance to lead engineering direction, mentor talent, and design systems for the future.

What we offer:

• Genuinely meaningful work as part of the most successful alliance in history;

• 3 year contract with competitive tax-free salary and household and children's allowances;

• Privileges for expatriate staff including expatriation and education allowances (where appropriate) and additional home leave;

• Excellent private health insurance scheme;

• Generous annual leave of 30 days plus official holidays;

• NATO Pension Scheme;

• Development programs such as professional training, wellbeing, and more 

To learn more about NCI Agency and our work, please visit our website.   

The NCI Agency prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment of mutual respect and value uniqueness and differences in gender, gender identity, race, ethnic or cultural origin, age, religion, sexual orientation and physical or neurocognitive ability.  

 Additional details on the conditions of application can be found via the NCI Agency career site.