Six Figure Work

Principal Software Engineer

Cubic

Company websitecubic.com (Cubic, opens in new tab)

Base salary $143K  to $175K

Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in Ashburn, VA

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  • LocationAshburn, VA
  • WorkplaceWorkplace not stated
  • Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
  • Last checked (1 h ago) · observed since

About this job

Business Unit:

Cubic Defense

Company Details:

When you join Cubic, you become part of a company that creates and delivers technology solutions in transportation to make people’s lives easier by simplifying their daily journeys, and defense capabilities to help promote mission success and safety for those who serve their nation. Led by our talented teams around the world, Cubic is committed to solving global issues through innovation and service to our customers and partners.

We have a top-tier portfolio of businesses, including Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) and Cubic Defense (CD). Explore more on Cubic.com.

Job Details:

Job Summary:

The successful candidate will be the lead developer for embedded software within DTECH, as well as supporting other projects. It involves designing embedded software for new products (e.g. microcontroller firmware), as well as maintaining software for the existing devices. The role will suit a self-starting individual with experience debugging low level issues through software and hardware analysis. The development will largely be in C and C++, but experience with other languages would be beneficial. The role requires close coordination with the electrical and systems engineering teams to ensure the software is robust and effective.


Essential Job Duties And Responsibilities

  • Lead software projects, ensuring delivery of high-quality, reliable software
  • Liaise with the wider business to determine requirements for new projects and features, clearly communicating the resources required and potential risks involved
  • Drive usage of software development best practices to ensure code is well structured, unit tested and easy to maintain
  • Integrate and troubleshoot firmware on a target platform in the lab environment using hardware analysis tools
  • Provide guidance on design and implementation to other projects within adjacent software teams
  • Identify new ideas and tools for continuous improvement of development practices
  • Mentor junior engineers, providing help and training suggestions for their ongoing development

Education and Qualifications

  • Four-year college degree in computer engineering or other related technical discipline, plus a minimum of eight years of related experience or a master’s degree with at least six years of related experience.
  • Must be eligible for a DOD Security Clearence

Skills Knowledge and Experience

Essential:

  • Strong C/C++ experience
  • Comprehensive understanding of embedded systems, including hardware-software interactions, real-time constraints, and low-level programming concepts
  • Experience debugging in an embedded environment
  • Experience using Unix commands and Linux based operating systems
  • Able to analyse and solve complex software engineering problems
  • Experience writing unit tests and using unit test frameworks

Desirable:

  • Experience using yocto
  • Experience with tools & applications such as JIRA, Confluence and Git

Personal Qualities

  • A driven and self-starting individual, with a desire to write quality, effective software
  • Good analytical skills, with a passion for finding simple solutions to complex problems
  • Able to prioritize work and complete tasks to a deadline
  • Good communication skills and ability to clearly convey complex ideas

The description provided above is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all job duties, responsibilities and requirements.  Duties, responsibilities and requirements may change over time and according to business need.

#LI-Hybrid

Worker Type:

Employee

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Cubic Pay Range:

$143,000.00 - $175,000.00 + benefits.

‎ 

The Cubic pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

‎ 

#LI-MD1

‎ 

Worker Type:

Employee

‎

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic under applicable law.

Source: Cubic on Workday · View original posting (opens in new tab)

Pay in context

This role's base floor ($143,000) is above 29% of the 524 Software Engineering roles in Virginia listed on this site. Their median floor is $159,500; the middle half runs from $131,300 to $179,550.

Only jobs on this site count, and each one publishes a base salary of $100,000 or more, so this compares six-figure jobs with each other, not with the whole market. Computed Nov 6, 2026.

This range next to 6 other live Cubic roles with the nearest advertised base floor
Chart as a table
This range next to 6 other live Cubic roles with the nearest advertised base floor
RolePublished base
Principal Software Engineer (this listing)$143K - $175K
Senior Network Engineer$140K - $157K
Principal Digital Electrical Design Engineer$148K - $190K
Senior RF Electrical Engineer$136K - $152K
Manager, Systems Integration & Test Engineering – Military Data Links$152K - $171K
Full Stack Software Engineer (Go / JavaScript / Python)$131K - $170K
Field Systems Engineer$156K - $170K

Same $100K to $400K scale as every card. All Cubic roles · How to read the bar

Observed changes

  1. First observed on the employer's board
  2. Began meeting the published-salary criteria
Observed since
Employer-stated posting date
2026-10-19
Where this pay comes from

Location as the employer wrote it: Ashburn, Virginia

$143,000.00 - $175,000.00 + benefits.

Method
Employer text, read with fixed rules and re-verified
Checked
Rule set
us-base-v2

The pay passage appears in the employer's own job text. Fixed, deterministic rules located it, and the passage below was checked against the stored copy of the posting.

What we verified

  • The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
  • The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
  • The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.

We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.