Technology Observatory​/Emerging Technology Engineer

We are seeking an Emerging Technology Engineer to evaluate, prototype, and recommend technologies that can improve enterprise platforms, cloud infrastructure, software delivery, data services, security, and mission capabilities. The ideal candidate combines broad technical knowledge with hands-on engineering experience and the ability to assess emerging solutions against real-world integration, security, performance, operational, and cost requirements.

• Monitor commercial, government-developed, open-source, and emerging technologies relevant to enterprise platforms, cloud infrastructure, Dev Sec Ops , data services, observability, cybersecurity, and application hosting.

• Evaluate candidate technologies against technical requirements, architectural alignment, security considerations, interoperability, operational impact, licensing, and cost.

• Assess product maturity, vendor support, licensing changes, lifecycle status, and end-of-life risks.

• Prepare concise technical assessments, comparative analyses, and evidence-based recommendations for engineering and architecture stakeholders.

• Develop small-scale prototypes, proof-of-concept implementations, and integration demonstrations to assess the feasibility and value of promising technologies.

• Test candidate solutions against representative system interfaces, workloads, and operational requirements.

• Document performance, scalability, integration complexity, security implications, dependencies, limitations, and support requirements.

• Collaborate with engineering teams to validate technical findings and prevent prototypes from introducing unsupported dependencies into production environments.

• Recommend whether technologies should be adopted, deferred, monitored, or rejected based on documented evaluation criteria and results.

• Support technical roadmaps, architecture reviews, technology refresh initiatives, and replacement planning.

• Coordinate the transition of approved prototypes and validated capabilities to production engineering teams.

• Capture lessons learned and measurable outcomes to inform future technology decisions and continuous improvement.

Location:

This position is fully onsite in Chantlly, VA.

• Active TS/SCI clearance with CI Polygraph.

• BS/BA and 6 years of experience, 9 years of experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.

• Approximately 6-10 years of experience in software engineering, systems engineering, cloud or platform engineering, data engineering, infrastructure, or related technical disciplines.

• Demonstrated ability to assess unfamiliar technologies and determine their technical feasibility, integration requirements, and operational implications.

• Hands-on experience developing prototypes, proof-of-concepts, software, infrastructure solutions, or system integrations.

• Understanding of enterprise architecture, system interoperability, security requirements, and production operations.

• Strong technical writing, analytical, and presentation skills, including the ability to communicate findings and recommendations to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

• Ability to distinguish experimental or demonstration capabilities from solutions suitable for production deployment.

• Experience supporting classified enterprise platforms or Intelligence Community environments.

• Familiarity with cloud-native architectures, containers, Kubernetes, and distributed systems.

• Experience with geospatial systems, data platforms, or mission-oriented applications.

• Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure, model-serving platforms, or emerging AI technologies.

• Experience evaluating commercial products, open-source projects, and vendor solutions.

• Knowledge of Dev Sec Ops , CI/CD pipelines, and automated software delivery environments.

• Experience with technology lifecycle management, obsolescence assessments, or modernization planning.

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world's leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land,…