Ridgewood hires selectively. We do not run a high-velocity recruiting funnel. We do build production software and deliver federal program work, and we are always interested in hearing from the kind of engineer, architect, analyst, or technologist who does the same.
Engineers who build, deploy, and sustain Ridgewood's productized software for federal missions. AI engineering, secure software, data fusion, edge inference, and the platform discipline behind PaddockOS, COVER3, and ESA One. Production work that runs in front of real operators.
Architects, analysts, scientists, governance engineers, and IT professionals who deliver against federal program contracts. Cloud architecture, data science, financial and portfolio analysis, governance engineering, accredited IT operations. Work shaped by federal program cadence and customer expectations.
The bar is the same across both. Software has to be fast, hardened, and accreditation-ready. Architecture and analysis have to be defensible, rigorous, and built to survive scrutiny. Every Ridgewood hire ships work that ends up in front of real users, real program offices, or real customers. We are a small firm by design. Compensation is competitive for federal contracting. Location is Reston, Virginia, with hybrid and remote arrangements available for the right candidate.
The people who succeed at Ridgewood share a posture, more than a resume. These are the qualities that matter to us across every role, in roughly the order we look for them.
Production software, accredited architecture, a financial model that drives a budget decision, a governance artifact a program office relies on. The people who do well here want to see their work used, not filed.
Hardening, defensibility, and audit-readiness are not steps you do after building. They are constraints you design against from the start. Whether the deliverable is code, architecture, an analysis, or a governance product, the discipline is the same.
Federal missions demand both. Move fast on prototypes and slow on architecture. Validate with operators early and ship for ATO on time. The work requires comfort with both rhythms, not just one.
Federal work is not a vehicle for personal portfolio building. It is work for customers whose missions matter. The people we hire understand the difference and want to be on the right side of it.
We post roles as the work demands and as program needs emerge. If a future opportunity might fit you, reach out below and we will keep your note on file for the right opening.
Whether a posted role fits you or not, we are open to hearing from people who do the kind of work described above. We hire deliberately, and the strongest hires often come from notes sent when no posted role existed.
That includes engineers, architects, data scientists, financial analysts, governance engineers, cloud architects, and IT professionals who deliver inside federal program environments. Send a short note about who you are, what you have built or delivered, and the kind of work that would interest you. Real examples matter more than polished resumes.
