Systems Engineer / Test Engineer (Junior–Mid)

BluestoneLogic•Washington, DC

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

BluestoneLogic is seeking an early-career systems engineer to determine what DoD mission systems need to do and verify that they do it. The role works with operators, subject matter experts, government leads, developers, test leads, cybersecurity staff, and program management to understand mission workflows, translate customer and contract needs into clear, testable requirements, and develop test procedures for verifying software releases. The engineer evaluates and prioritizes requests against mission value, technical constraints, and the backlog, and communicates recommendations and decisions to operators and other stakeholders. The position includes requirements elicitation and decomposition, traceability across subsystems and interfaces, documentation of workflows and use cases, and capturing non-functional requirements such as performance, reliability, security, and operation in degraded or disconnected conditions. It also involves writing user stories with measurable acceptance criteria, including Gherkin scenarios, and creating prototypes or mockups to confirm intent. The engineer plans and supports functional, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing; records results and defects; verifies fixes; and helps automate repeatable tests and integrate them into a GitLab CI/CD pipeline. The role is performed in an Agile environment and includes coordinating across organizations, participating in sprint planning, Technical Exchange Meetings and customer reviews, helping diagnose defects using logs, and contributing technical writing to proposals as opportunities arise. BluestoneLogic emphasizes talent and drive over résumé length and encourages strong recent graduates to apply. Senior engineers mentor the successful candidate in requirements and test practices. The role is hybrid across BluestoneLogic headquarters, DISA at Fort Meade, Maryland, and remote work.

Requirements

0–4 years of experience in systems engineering, requirements analysis, software testing, or quality assurance; internships, co-ops, and capstone projects count.
Hands-on work on a software project, professional, academic, or personal, with the ability to describe the product, team roles, and the candidate’s contribution.
Experience gathering requirements from end users or stakeholders and writing clear, testable statements with measurable acceptance criteria.
Experience writing test cases or procedures and executing functional or regression testing.
Basic debugging skills, including reproducing an issue, reading logs or error output, and narrowing down the cause.
Basic scripting skills in at least one language, such as Python, Bash, or JavaScript, to automate repetitive tasks such as test data setup or log parsing.
Familiarity with the software development lifecycle, Agile/Scrum, and a backlog or defect-tracking tool such as Jira, GitLab Issues, or Azure DevOps.
Strong, structured written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain recommendations and tradeoffs.
Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience such as a military operator or technical background.
U.S. citizenship and an active DoD SECRET clearance, or the ability to obtain one.
Ability to work hybrid across BluestoneLogic headquarters, DISA at Fort Meade, Maryland, and remote.

Nice To Haves

Exposure to command and control, situational awareness, logistics, or customer resource management systems.
Familiarity with commercial C2 platforms such as Palantir Maven Smart System or Anduril.
Prior work supporting DISA, a Combatant Command, or another DoD program office.
Exposure to test automation frameworks such as Selenium, Cypress, Robot Framework, or JUnit, including writing test scripts, or BDD tools such as Cucumber, SpecFlow, or Behave, including writing step definitions for Gherkin scenarios.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, especially GitLab CI/CD, including adding automated tests to a pipeline.
Basic API testing experience, such as Postman or REST APIs, including writing automated API test cases.
Familiarity with DoDAF architecture views such as OV-1 or SV-1, or SysML/MBSE tools; MIL-STD documentation, technical data packages, or engineering change proposals are also a foundation.
Familiarity with security testing concepts.
Experience with virtualization, containers such as Docker, or cloud environments, and deployment automation scripts such as Bash or Ansible for installs, updates, and rollbacks.
Experience working on classified networks such as SIPRNet.
Certifications such as ISTQB Foundation, INCOSE ASEP, or CompTIA Security+.
Coursework or applied work in systems architecture methods such as design structure matrices or tradespace and trade studies.
Programming experience beyond scripting, such as Java, Python, JavaScript, or SQL, and judgment to use existing tools, APIs, and open-source components before writing custom code.
Experience using AI tools to accelerate customer research or prototype a capability.
Experience as a product owner or analyst managing a backlog for real users.
Experience supporting proposals or writing technical volumes.

Responsibilities

Conduct discovery with operators, subject matter experts, and government leads through interviews, site visits, and demonstrations to understand mission workflows, pain points, and capability acceptance criteria.
Decompose customer-expressed and contract requirements into clear, atomic, testable requirements and break larger requests into smaller parts that can be evaluated against implementation effort.
Trace requirements across subsystems and interfaces, including APIs, data exchanges, and connected systems, and assess the impact of proposed changes.
Capture non-functional requirements, including performance, reliability, security, and operation in degraded or disconnected conditions.
Maintain requirements traceability from source material through design and test.
Log operator and customer requests in the backlog, link them to existing requirements, and track them to a decision.
Evaluate requests against mission value, technical constraints, and the backlog; recommend whether to build, defer, or decline, and explain the reasoning.
Reconcile conflicting stakeholder input, recommend resolutions, and communicate decisions and timelines to operators.
Document requirements, use cases, and operational workflows in formats that operators and developers can understand.
Write user stories with measurable acceptance criteria, including Given-When-Then (Gherkin) scenarios.
Use prototypes or mockups, including AI-assisted ones, to confirm intent with operators and convey target outcomes to developers.
Produce workflow and system diagrams, Technical Exchange Meeting minutes, and test reports.
Write step-by-step test procedures and scripts for operators and developers to verify functionality.
Execute and support functional, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing for software releases.
Record test results, report defects with reproduction steps, and verify fixes.
Help automate repeatable testing by writing simple scripts for test data and log checks, converting manual procedures into automated test cases and BDD step definitions, and adding tests to the GitLab CI/CD pipeline with the test lead.
Contribute functional security test cases, including authentication and access-control tests, under the test lead’s guidance.
Collaborate with developers, test leads, cybersecurity staff, and program management in an Agile environment.
Coordinate across organizations and drive communication plans to keep responses and deliverables on schedule.
Participate in sprint planning, Technical Exchange Meetings, and customer reviews, and brief findings to technical and non-technical audiences.
Help developers reproduce and isolate defects by reading logs and tracing system behavior to narrow root causes.
Contribute technical writing to proposals as opportunities arise.