Senior Systems Engineer - TS/SCI

Sunayu•Bethesda, MD

16h•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Senior Systems Engineer, you will lead an application team responsible for maintaining the continuous flow of new software enhancements and deployments. You will manage risks, escalate impediments, and help to drive continuous process improvement. While most work is conducted on-site at our client location in Bethesda, MD, we offer a flexible schedule and, occasionally, some tasks may be performed remotely. You will work closely with the team on key tasks including managing, directing, coordinating, and providing technical direction for all aspects of the team’s development efforts. You will also plan, design, and oversee the implementation of software development solutions, and provide technical support, coordination, and execution of systems engineering activities such as feature/requirements analysis, design, implementation planning, integration and test, sustainment, documentation, deployment, and system assessment. Ensuring sound engineering practices are followed and providing direction for the interpretation and application of policies and procedures to engineering and development activities are crucial. You will develop a working knowledge of government business processes and provide recommendations accordingly. Collaboration with other development teams to identify and develop high-value integrations with other systems/applications is expected. You will develop, manage, and continually improve the backlog of work items for an Agile scrum team, updating and prioritizing stories and epics via feedback from various program stakeholders to ensure the team is always working on the highest-value tasks. Support for Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program increment planning and execution through creation of work tickets in GitLab and program/system documentation using collaboration software (e.g., GitLab wiki) is required. You will lead/participate in all Agile ceremonies, stay informed of increment and sprint progress, and work with the team to identify and remove impediments and dependencies. Backlog refinement will be performed on a regular basis, which may include decomposing features into workable stories, prioritizing or reprioritizing items in the backlog for upcoming sprints, refining acceptance criteria and complexity estimates, or removing tickets that are no longer relevant. Accepting or rejecting completed work based on defined acceptance criteria to ensure the delivery of high-quality software is part of the role. You will lead the design and architecture of backend systems and services, drive initiatives across the engineering team related to scalability, reliability, and performance, and develop requirements and design documents. Contributing to and reviewing RFCs, and requirements, design, and architecture reviews, and coordinating with the Test Team to develop and monitor automated system integration tests to identify failed modules and components are also key responsibilities. You will manage individual project priorities, deliverables, and deadlines, and provide specific input to the software components of system design, including hardware/software trade-offs, software reuse, use of COTS/GOTS in place of new development, and requirements analysis and synthesis from system level to individual software components. Fostering an environment of collaboration with different team members to provide quality service and product to customers, and acting as a mentor to mid-level and junior engineers, offering guidance on best practices and career growth, are essential aspects of this role.

Requirements

BS in Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or related field and 12 – 15 years of prior relevant experience or Masters with 10 – 13 years of prior relevant experience. Additional years of experience in lieu of degree are acceptable
Must have an active Top Secret security clearance with the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI with Polygraph.
Software development experience in languages such as Java or Python.
Experience as a Systems Enginer, Product Owner, or a similar role in an Agile software development team.
Experience with requirements and design documentation, including process flow diagrams.
Demonstrated ability to break down complex problems into actionable steps.
Experience managing and prioritizing product backlogs effectively.
Strong understanding of Agile methodologies, and experience with tools like Gitlab, Jira, and Confluence.
Experience with facilitating scrum for the team (Planning, Retrospective, Grooming & Review/Demo).
Excellent communication skills (verbal and written) to articulate technical and non-technical concepts to diverse audiences.
Proven ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, design, and project management teams.
Demonstrated ability to manage expectations and maintain strong relationships with government and contractor stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Kafka or other message passing systems
Experience on a production/enterprise system
Cloud infrastructure experience
Experience with Appian or other low-code software technologies
Experience with any of the following technologies: PostgreSQL
Containerization, especially with Docker
DevOps practices and tools including Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tools and practices, especially Gitlab or Jenkins
GraphQL
Keycloak
Proactive in identifying tech debt, systemic issues, and areas for team/process improvement
Expertise building and maintaining microservices in production in Kubernetes
Understanding of Elasticsearch internals: sharding, performance tuning, analyzers, query DSL
Elasticsearch certifications or other program stack related certifications
Strong Kafka experience: event design, stream processing, performance tuning
Familiarity with schema registries and Kafka streaming patterns
Familiarity with authentication and authorization products such as Keycloak
Experience with security best practices for services: authN/Z, secrets management, data protection
GraphQL familiarity
Hardware on-prem and cloud-based deployments using Kubernetes
Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code (ie CloudFormation, Terraform, Pulumi)
Experience of a production/enterprise systems at scale
Knowledge of distributed systems concepts (e.g., idempotency, eventual consistency)
Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers
Strong testing discipline with a focus on automation, coverage, and CI/CD pipelines
Hands-on development and/or scripting experience, especially Java and Python
Experience with AWS cloud-based architecture, services, and software development

Responsibilities

Manage, direct, coordinate, and provide technical direction for all aspects of the team’s development efforts.
Plan, design, and oversee implementation of software development solutions.
Provide technical support, coordination, and execution of systems engineering activities such as feature/requirements analysis, design, implementation planning, integration and test, sustainment, documentation, deployment, and system assessment.
Ensure sound engineering practices are followed.
Provide direction for interpretation and application of policies and procedures to the engineering and development activities.
Develop a working knowledge of government business processes and provide recommendations accordingly.
Collaborate with other development teams to identify and develop high-value integrations with other systems/applications.
Develop, manage and continually improve the backlog of work items for an Agile scrum team.
Update and prioritize stories and epics via feedback from various program stakeholders ensuring the team is always working on the highest-value tasks.
Support Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program increment planning and execution through creation of work tickets in GitLab as well as program/system documentation using collaboration software (e.g., GitLab wiki).
Lead/participate in all Agile ceremonies to include daily stand up, planning, reviews, and retrospectives.
Stay informed of increment and sprint progress and work with the team to identify and remove impediments and dependencies.
Perform backlog refinement on a regular basis. This may include decomposing features into workable stories, prioritizing or reprioritizing items in the backlog for upcoming sprints, refining acceptance criteria and complexity estimates or removing tickets that are no longer relevant.
Accept or reject completed work based on defined acceptance criteria to ensure delivery of high-quality software.
Lead the design and architecture of backend systems and services.
Drive initiatives across the engineering team related to scalability, reliability, and performance.
Develop requirements and design documents
Contribute to and review RFCs, and requirements, design, and architecture reviews
Coordinate with Test Team to develop and monitor automated system integration tests to identify failed modules and components
Manage individual project priorities, deliverables, and deadlines
Provides specific input to the software components of system design to include hardware/software trade-offs, software reuse, use of COTS/GOTS in place of new development, and requirements analysis and synthesis from system level to individual software components
Foster an environment of collaboration with the different team members in the goal of providing quality service and product to our customers
Act as a mentor to mid-level and junior engineers, offering guidance on best practices and career growth