Senior Software Engineer at Appian in McLean, VA

Job description

Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together. Senior Software Engineer McLean, VA | Work Model: On-site Transform enterprise-scale cloud infrastructure to power AI-Powered Process Automation for the world's most demanding organizations. ABOUT THE TEAM Appian Engineering spans the full depth of our platform: from foundational enterprise-scale infrastructure, to AI capabilities that redefine automation, to the developer tooling that makes it all accessible. We operate in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment focused on technical precision, continuous learning, and high code quality. By joining our team, you will solve complex problems that directly shape how our Appian Cloud infrastructure delivers our AI-Powered Process Automation platform to enterprise customers worldwide. THE OPPORTUNITY As enterprises accelerate their digital transformation journeys, Appian is re-architecting its cloud infrastructure to deliver unmatched performance, cost efficiency, and reliability at scale. This role places you at the center of that transformation, where your contributions directly impact thousands of customers relying on mission-critical automation. You will ensure that customer sites remain highly available, responsive, and capable of meeting the needs of both Appian's internal development teams and our external clients. WHAT YOU'LL DO Develop Quality Code: Write clean, reliable, and well-tested code to maintain critical services and bootstrap new projects. Leverage AI Responsibly: Use agentic software tools to enhance development efficiency while maintaining engineering craftsmanship. Drive Projects & Collaboration: Lead high-impact projects within small teams, collaborating with internal engineering stakeholders to gather feedback and refine designs. Perform Reviews: Conduct architecture and code reviews for peers, offering constructive feedback focused on performance, maintainability, and security. Optimize Deployment Models: Build resilient continuous delivery pipelines and align infrastructure requirements with platform deployment goals. Modernize Infrastructure: Harness Kubernetes, Crossplane, and AWS Managed Services for cloud-native solutions Ensure Maintainability and Supportability: Author clear documentation and runbooks, participating in incident response as necessary. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS Education: Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field Prior Experience: 3+ years of professional software development experience building enterprise-scale applications Language Fluency: Proficiency in at least one modern programming language, such as Python, Go, or Java. Cloud Native Knowledge: Solid foundational understanding of cloud service providers (AWS, Azure, or GCP) to build scalable, serverless, or cloud-native applications. Communication Skills: Excellent spoken and written communication skills with a passion for collaborative problem-solving. Ability to obtain or maintain an active Secret-level clearance (DoD Tier 3 investigation) to access IL4/IL5 environments. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Hands-on expertise with Kubernetes, Crossplane, and Terraform. Experience working on infrastructure or platform teams supporting high-volume, mission-critical production services. Proficiency with scripting languages such as Bash or Python. Experience with AWS Managed Services (e.g., EKS, MSK, ElastiCache, RDS). The base salary range represents a good faith and reasonable estimate of the range at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be dependent on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s rel