Senior Software Systems Engineer

Space Dynamics Laboratory • North Logan, UT

2d

About The Position

Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) is seeking a senior technical leader whose work combines software engineering, systems engineering, infrastructure expertise, customer engagement, and technical leadership. The role maintains a broad working understanding of the technical environment, including its applications, operating systems, virtualization platforms, container infrastructure, and supporting services. The engineer evaluates system capabilities and limitations, identifies technical risks and dependencies, and helps translate customer objectives into practical solutions.

As a technical adviser to the customer, the selected candidate leads technical discussions, clarifies system capabilities and configuration options, coordinates across engineering and operations teams, and maintains alignment between customer expectations and technical realities. The role includes investigating technical issues and participating in implementation when needed, while focusing primarily on system-level understanding, technical direction, and mission outcomes. The successful candidate connects software, infrastructure, and operations; exercises technical judgment; and guides teams without needing to be the deepest specialist in every technology.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, management information systems, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 15 or more years of relevant experience in software engineering, systems engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related technical field, with increasing responsibility.
• Broad technical understanding of complex software systems and supporting infrastructure, including interactions among applications, operating systems, virtualization, containers, and services.
• Working knowledge of Linux environments, particularly RHEL, and familiarity with enterprise virtualization or container platforms.
• Experience guiding technical execution and coordinating across software, infrastructure, and operations teams.
• Strong customer-facing communication skills, including experience leading technical meetings, advising stakeholders, and explaining complex technical concepts and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to translate customer objectives into technical priorities while maintaining a system-level perspective.
• Sound technical judgment, initiative, and ability to balance hands-on problem-solving with broader technical leadership.
• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance with the DoW and required program access approvals.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 20% as required by the program.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with VMware and enterprise virtualization environments.
• Experience with Red Hat OpenShift, Kubernetes, and containerized applications.
• Familiarity with application architecture and development in Python, Java, C++, or other programming languages.
• Experience with system administration, platform operations, or infrastructure troubleshooting.
• Familiarity with system architecture, requirements management, integration, verification, and validation.
• Understanding of networking, cybersecurity, and DoW mission operations environments.
• Experience with CI/CD, automated deployments, infrastructure as code, or configuration management.
• Familiarity with messaging technologies such as gRPC, Kafka, or ZeroMQ.
• Experience coordinating across developers, system administrators, infrastructure engineers, vendors, and customer organizations.
• Familiarity with Agile development and tools such as Git, Jira, and Confluence.
• Active security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a reliable, system-wide understanding of the software environment and how its components interact.
• Evaluate system capabilities and limitations and identify technical risks, dependencies, and gaps.
• Translate customer objectives into practical technical solutions and priorities while maintaining a system-level perspective.
• Lead customer technical discussions, clarify expectations and configuration options, and explain system capabilities and limitations.
• Advise stakeholders and explain complex technical concepts and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Coordinate technical execution across software, infrastructure, and operations teams.
• Investigate technical issues and engage in implementation when needed.
• Keep technical decisions aligned with customer objectives, system capabilities, and mission needs.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior