Requirement: Senior Full Stack Software Development Services
Location of Performance: Off-site
Cost Not to Exceed: 2026 BASE: NTE 65,930 EUR
Period of Performance: 2026 BASE: Starting as soon as possible but not later than 01 June 2026
Required Security Clearance: No Security Clearance Required
Please do NOT apply for any NATO contract positions unless you meet ALL the following criteria:
- Current National or NATO SECRET clearance
- Nationality of one of the NATO member countries
- Current work visa for the specific location if applying for an in-country position
Introduction:
NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA), as the main ICT service provider in NATO, is the main technical entity providing subject matter expertise to support NATO Cyber and Digital Transformation (CDT) Branch's Innovation Programmes of Work (PoW) and relevant activities in 2026. NCIA Chief Technology Office (CTO) is looking for a Contractor who will provide full-stack software development support to the PoW projects.
Objectives:
- The Contractor shall provide Senior Full Stack Software Development Services to architect, develop, implement, integrate, and deploy Full Stack application meant for analytical capabilities for the Toolbox platform that is being developed by NCIA. The Contractor will be responsible to provide technical expertise in the area of software development and coordinate activities with the various NCIA teams.
- The Contractor will develop tailored tools to enable and facilitate demonstration of the results, maintain dashboards and information management artefacts and furthermore, the Contractor shall be able to provide on-site support to the workshops that will be organized within the scope of PoW projects.
- Under the direction / guidance of the NCIA Point of Contact or delegated staff, the Contractor shall perform the following activities:
- Support NCIA in the NATO Programmes of Work with CDT in the area of software development for digital innovation and technology applications.
- Develop advanced application capabilities for analysts, enabling the exploration, analysis, and synthesis of strategic foresight analysis data through complex, multi-step user experience workflows, including cross-article reasoning, topic engineering, source intelligence, and relevance assessment.
- Develop full-stack integrations with AI-enabled backend services, including the exposure of AI-driven analytical functions, retrieval mechanisms, and automated synthesis capabilities in a controlled and user-transparent manner.
- Apply sound software design principles to ensure transparent, auditable, and controllable analytical workflows, including clear traceability between inputs, sources, AI-assisted reasoning steps, and generated outputs, suitable for high-trust analytical and policy environments.
- Deliver deployment-ready solutions that are compatible with restricted and secure environments, including solutions subject to accreditation for NATO UNCLASSIFIED (NU) deployment, and capable of operating under governance, security, and operational constraints beyond standard commercial systems.
- The services are delivered through monthly milestones and delivery increments. The deliverables will be required by various dates, as identified in Section 4, throughout the contract execution.
The Contractor shall participate in milestone review meetings after the delivery of each milestone defined in Section 4.1 Schedule of Deliverables, and if necessary other technical progress meetings, according to project manager's instructions.
For each milestone, the contractor must report the outcome of his/her work during the period of performance. The format of this report shall be a short email to the NCIA Point of Contact mentioning briefly the work held and the development achievements.
Acceptance of each delivery completion will be documented in the Delivery Acceptance Sheet.
Qualifications:
The support services under this SOW requires a Senior Full Stack Developer with the following qualifications:
Required Qualifications:
- Senior-level full stack development experience with at least 8 years of experience, covering: frontend and backend development, system architecture, integration, implementation and end-to-end ownership from design through deployment.
- Extensive knowledge in frontend (Vue.js, React, Astro) and backend frameworks (Python, FastAPI), including: frontend application architecture and state management, backend API design, schema validation, and service orchestration.
- Proven experience integrating frontend applications with backend APIs and data services, including: high-volume data ingestion and querying, search, retrieval, and analytics-oriented backends, performance-aware UI-backend interaction patterns. The bidder must provide at least two project examples demonstrating the experience.
- Practical experience integrating AI and LLM-based services, including: LLM-powered analysis, synthesis, and content generation, retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or hybrid retrieval approaches and deterministic, traceable, and auditable AI outputs suitable for policy and analytical use.
- Experience with designing and implementing analyst-facing workflows, with emphasis on: transparency of analytical results, traceability of sources, reasoning, and outputs, user control over inputs, filters, and relevance criteria.
- Experience working in analytical decision-support contexts or strategic foresight, including: topic engineering and thematic analysis, source intelligence and relevance assessment, multi-source analytical synthesis.
- Ability to work independently at senior level, including: structuring complex systems from high-level requirements, translating abstract objectives into concrete technical deliverables and delivery constraints.
- Experience with analytical platforms, such as strategic foresight analysis, emerging and disruptive technologies assessment, or decision-support tooling.
- Experience deploying solutions in restricted, controlled, or secure environments, including: separation of environments, controlled AI service integration, deployment constraints beyond standard commercial cloud setups.
- Candidate must have the nationality of one of the NATO nations.
- Excellent command of spoken and written English.
- Relevant experience with NATO and/or international organizations is highly desired.
- Experience in multi-stakeholder and high-accountability environments, including: auditability and traceability requirements, governance, review, and acceptance processes, coordination between technical, policy, and operational stakeholders.
