Systems Engineer - TS/SCI

Sunayu•Bethesda, MD

20h•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Senior Systems Engineer, you will lead an application team responsible for maintaining the continuous flow of software enhancements and deployments. You will manage risks, escalate impediments, and drive continuous process improvement. The role is primarily on-site at a client location in Bethesda, Maryland, with a flexible schedule and occasional remote work possible. Travel is not required. You will provide technical leadership for software development and systems engineering activities, including requirements analysis, design, implementation planning, integration and testing, sustainment, documentation, deployment, and system assessment. You will lead the design and architecture of backend systems and services, promote scalability, reliability, and performance, and coordinate with testing teams on automated system integration tests. The role also includes Agile product ownership and facilitation, stakeholder collaboration, and mentoring engineers. The position requires an active Top Secret clearance and the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI with polygraph. Sunayu, LLC serves the Defense and Intelligence communities with mission-critical engineering solutions. The company emphasizes trust, accountability, ethical transparency, collaboration, professional growth, and open communication. It supports employee development with company-reimbursed training and continuing education of up to $5,000 per year, and participation in industry conferences and events. Compensation is determined based on factors including responsibilities, experience, education, skills, and market and business considerations; no salary range is specified.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or a related field and 12–15 years of relevant experience, or a master’s degree and 10–13 years of relevant experience; additional experience may substitute for a degree.
Active Top Secret security clearance and ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI with polygraph.
Software development experience in languages such as Java or Python.
Experience as a Systems Engineer, Product Owner, or in a similar role on an Agile software development team.
Experience with requirements and design documentation, including process flow diagrams.
Ability to break down complex problems into actionable steps.
Experience managing and prioritizing product backlogs.
Strong understanding of Agile methodologies and experience with tools such as GitLab, Jira, and Confluence.
Experience facilitating scrum activities, including planning, retrospectives, grooming, and reviews or demos.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills for explaining technical and non-technical concepts to diverse audiences.
Ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, design, and project management teams.
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 with production or enterprise systems.
Cloud infrastructure experience.
Experience with Appian or other low-code software technologies.
Experience with PostgreSQL.
Experience with containerization, especially Docker.
Experience with DevOps practices and tools, including CI/CD, especially GitLab or Jenkins.
Experience with GraphQL.
Experience with Keycloak.
Proactive identification of technical debt, systemic issues, and opportunities for team or process improvement.
Expertise building and maintaining production microservices in Kubernetes.
Understanding of Elasticsearch internals, including sharding, performance tuning, analyzers, and query DSL.
Elasticsearch or other program-stack-related certifications.
Strong Kafka experience, including event design, stream processing, and performance tuning.
Familiarity with schema registries and Kafka streaming patterns.
Familiarity with authentication and authorization products such as Keycloak.
Experience with service security best practices, including authentication and authorization, secrets management, and data protection.
Experience with on-premises hardware and cloud-based deployments using Kubernetes.
Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools such as CloudFormation, Terraform, or Pulumi.
Experience with production or enterprise systems at scale.
Knowledge of distributed systems concepts such as idempotency and eventual consistency.
Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers.
Strong testing discipline focused on automation, coverage, and CI/CD pipelines.
Hands-on development or scripting experience, especially with Java and Python.
Experience with AWS cloud architecture, services, and software development.

Responsibilities

Manage, direct, coordinate, and provide technical direction for the team’s development efforts.
Plan, design, and oversee implementation of software development solutions.
Provide technical support, coordination, and execution of systems engineering activities, including requirements analysis, design, implementation planning, integration and test, sustainment, documentation, deployment, and system assessment.
Ensure sound engineering practices and provide direction on applying policies and procedures to engineering and development activities.
Develop knowledge of government business processes and make recommendations accordingly.
Collaborate with other development teams to identify and develop valuable integrations with other systems and applications.
Develop, manage, and continually improve an Agile scrum team’s backlog; update and prioritize stories and epics based on stakeholder feedback.
Support SAFe program increment planning and execution by creating GitLab work tickets and program or system documentation.
Lead or participate in Agile ceremonies, including stand-ups, planning, reviews, and retrospectives.
Monitor increment and sprint progress and work with the team to identify and remove impediments and dependencies.
Refine the backlog regularly by decomposing features, prioritizing items, refining acceptance criteria and estimates, and removing obsolete tickets.
Accept or reject completed work based on defined acceptance criteria.
Lead the design and architecture of backend systems and services and drive engineering initiatives related to scalability, reliability, and performance.
Develop requirements and design documents; contribute to and review RFCs and requirements, design, and architecture reviews.
Coordinate with the Test Team to develop and monitor automated system integration tests and identify failed modules and components.
Manage individual project priorities, deliverables, and deadlines.
Provide input to software components of system design, including hardware/software trade-offs, software reuse, COTS/GOTS selection, and requirements analysis and synthesis.
Foster collaboration among team members to provide quality service and products to customers.
Mentor mid-level and junior engineers on best practices and career growth.

Benefits

Three medical plan options.
Dental and vision coverage.
FSA, DCFSA, and HSA.
Life and AD&D insurance.
Short-term and long-term disability coverage.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
Training and educational assistance, including company-reimbursed training and continuing education of up to $5,000 per year.
Paid Time Off (PTO).
11 federal holidays.
401(k) plan with up to a 6% match and 100% immediate vesting.
Participation in industry conferences and events.