Systems Engineer Architect

Vantor • Herndon, VA

4d • $122,000 - $178,200

About The Position

Vantor is seeking a senior technical leader with deep systems engineering expertise to lead the design and delivery of complex software-intensive systems across cloud platforms, distributed systems, AI-enabled products, mission software, and large-scale operational environments. The role partners with engineering, product, and architecture leaders to define system behavior, set technical direction, and ensure systems are scalable, resilient, and aligned with customer and mission outcomes. It balances engineering rigor with product velocity by simplifying complexity, identifying risks early, and enabling independent teams to deliver cohesive systems.

The role includes leading architecture and system delivery across multiple engineering teams, translating ambiguous customer, mission, and business needs into scalable technical solutions, and guiding systems from concept through integration, validation, operational readiness, and customer adoption. The engineer will help evolve systems engineering practices in response to AI-assisted development and agentic software engineering, using AI to accelerate architecture, analysis, and design while identifying risks earlier and scaling practices to match development velocity.

The position calls for systems thinking, software architecture expertise, technical leadership, learning agility, and product and mission orientation. The job posting describes work on significant and unique issues requiring independent judgment, and cites typical experience of at least 15 years with a bachelor's degree, 10 years with a master's degree, or 8 years with a Ph.D. or equivalent experience. Applicants must be a U.S. Person, defined as a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, Asylee, or Refugee. Certain roles may be subject to U.S. export control laws requiring U.S. person status.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience solving complex software systems problems.
• Significant experience architecting and delivering large-scale, software-intensive systems.
• Demonstrated success leading major cross-functional or cross-domain technical initiatives.
• Deep understanding of modern software architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience leading architecture reviews, technical trade studies, and consequential design decisions.
• Experience defining system boundaries, interfaces, integration strategies, and validation approaches.
• Strong understanding of software development, integration, deployment, and operational readiness.
• Ability to communicate effectively with software engineers, architects, product leaders, customers, senior leaders, and executives.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence and create alignment across multiple teams.
• Ability to reason across systems, interfaces, constraints, dependencies, feedback loops, failure modes, and emergent behavior.
• Experience understanding interactions among software, infrastructure, data, operations, and customer workflows.
• Ability to establish system boundaries, reduce unnecessary coupling, and design for near-term delivery and long-term adaptability.
• Ability to make difficult tradeoffs involving customer outcomes, technical risk, delivery schedule, cost, maintainability, and strategic flexibility.
• Ability to enter unfamiliar technical or mission domains, develop sufficient depth to make sound decisions, integrate subject-matter-expert perspectives, challenge assumptions, and resolve technical disagreements.
• Accountability for integration, validation, operational readiness, adoption, and real-world system performance.
• Must be a U.S. Person, defined as a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, Asylee, or Refugee.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with cloud-native platforms and Kubernetes.
• Experience with distributed data systems and event-driven architectures.
• Experience with AI-assisted software development and agentic engineering workflows.
• Experience with high-availability, mission-critical, or operational software platforms.
• Experience in geospatial, aerospace, defense, robotics, autonomous systems, or other complex mission domains.
• Experience with systems-of-systems integration.
• Experience with developer platforms, platform engineering, or internal engineering infrastructure.
• Experience with sovereign, on-premises, disconnected, or hybrid deployment environments.
• Experience with model-based or digitally enabled systems engineering practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and delivery of complex, cross-domain software systems.
• Define system architecture, integration strategy, and technical direction across multiple engineering teams.
• Translate ambiguous customer, mission, and business problems into scalable technical solutions.
• Lead architecture trade studies and make consequential technical decisions across competing priorities.
• Drive system decomposition, interface definition, dependency management, and integration planning for large distributed systems.
• Partner with Product to validate customer needs and ensure delivered capabilities solve the right problems.
• Identify architectural, integration, operational, and delivery risks early and drive mitigation.
• Shape technical direction across a product portfolio or strategic technical domain.
• Influence engineering organizations through technical credibility rather than reporting authority.
• Improve engineering quality through architecture, engineering practices, technical standards, and mentoring senior technical leaders.
• Drive capabilities from concept through integration, validation, operational readiness, and customer adoption.
• Use AI to accelerate system architecture, analysis, and design; identify risks earlier; and scale systems engineering practices to AI-enabled software development.
• Develop other senior technical leaders and improve organizational technical decision-making.
• Ensure independent teams deliver components that function as a cohesive system and preserve architectural flexibility while delivering customer and mission outcomes.

Benefits

• Robust 401(k) with company match.
• Mental health resources.
• Student loan repayment assistance.
• Adoption reimbursement.
• Pet insurance.
• Incentive-eligible compensation, with a target based on contribution, company performance, and/or individual results.

What This Job Offers

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