Systems Engineer / Test Engineer (Junior–Mid)

BluestoneLogic•Fort Meade, MD

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

BluestoneLogic is seeking an early-career systems engineer to work with operators of DoD mission systems, translate their needs into clear, testable requirements, and develop test procedures used by operators and developers to verify software releases. The role emphasizes understanding real operational workflows, making and explaining recommendations about customer requests, and taking ownership of work through to a decision or resolution. Strong recent graduates are encouraged to apply. The engineer will elicit and decompose requirements, maintain traceability across subsystems and interfaces, document workflows and acceptance criteria, and support functional, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing. The role also includes basic test automation, defect investigation, security test contributions under guidance, and collaboration with developers, test leads, cybersecurity staff, program management, operators, and government stakeholders in an Agile environment. The position works hybrid across BluestoneLogic headquarters, DISA at Fort Meade, Maryland, and remote. Senior engineers will mentor the successful candidate in requirements and test practices.

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, and ability to describe the product, team roles, and personal 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 issues, reading logs or error output, and narrowing down causes.
Basic scripting in at least one language such as Python, Bash, or JavaScript to automate repetitive tasks.
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, or BDD tools such as Cucumber, SpecFlow, or Behave.
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 and SV-1, or SysML/MBSE tools.
MIL-STD documentation, technical data packages (TDPs), or engineering change proposals (ECPs) experience.
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 (DSM), tradespace, or 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 workflows, pain points, and capability acceptance criteria.
Decompose customer and contract requirements into clear, atomic, testable requirements.
Trace requirements across subsystems and interfaces, and assess the effects of proposed changes.
Capture non-functional requirements, including performance, reliability, security, and operation in degraded or disconnected conditions.
Maintain requirements traceability from source inputs through design and testing.
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 rationale.
Reconcile conflicting stakeholder input and recommend a resolution.
Communicate decisions and timelines to operators.
Document requirements, use cases, and operational workflows for operator and developer audiences.
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 communicate target outcomes to developers.
Produce workflow and system diagrams, Technical Exchange Meeting (TEM) minutes, and test reports.
Write step-by-step test procedures and scripts for operators and developers.
Execute and support functional, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing for software releases.
Record test results, log defects with reproduction steps, and verify fixes.
Help automate repeatable testing with scripts, automated test cases, and BDD step definitions; work with the test lead to add them to the GitLab CI/CD pipeline.
Contribute functional security test cases for authentication and access control 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, TEMs, and customer reviews; brief findings to technical and non-technical audiences.
Help developers reproduce and isolate defects by reading logs and tracing system behavior.
Contribute technical writing to proposals as opportunities arise.