Systems Engineer Security Clearance

Position: Systems Engineer with Security Clearance
Shadow gate Partners is seeking a Systems Engineer for our client, a leading provider of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and specialized communications systems to the Intelligence Community, with over 40 years of deep expertise across strategic and tactical missions. This is a fully funded position with the client serving as prime on the contract, available for immediate start. This role is 100% onsite at the client's facility either in Fairfax, VA or Denver, CO.

Work with ground processing system developers to satisfy evolving mission requirements (e.g., modern communications signals) and ground architecture requirements (e.g., resiliency), transitioning legacy applications from their current hosting infrastructure to a modernized mission processing framework, and providing continuing post-migration support. This framework provides an operationally supported container orchestration environment and processing capability at several government sites, enabling Dev Sec Ops  pipelines for Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery/Deployment, and Continuous Operations, driving toward rapid software/hardware updates with reduced transition timelines and cost.

- Interact with developers, teammates, and the customer within a weekly/monthly/quarterly rhythm to plan and execute agile processes (e.g., facilitate creation of Jira epics and stories, assignment of story points, and assessment of progress toward objectives)
- Investigate and implement agile software development and deployment techniques to modernize current systems (e.g., containerize components, Kubernetes orchestration)
- Develop prototype tools, documentation, and common implementation pattern examples
- Document system architecture, interfaces, CONOPs, trade study plans and results
- Create documentation of roadmaps, key technical capabilities, and detailed plans utilizing tools such as Confluence and Jira Required Skills and Experience - Bachelor's degree in Engineering or Computer Science
- At least 3 years performing technical system engineering tasks, software, hardware, or firmware development, testing, or systems integration
- Ability and desire to work independently — adapt tasking to fulfill needs as they evolve, self-starter, work to high-level objectives and intent rather than formal requirements
- Proven skills facilitating small technical team coordination and productivity
- Responsible for team progress/reporting/monitoring
- Responsible for collaborating across the organization to remove roadblocks
- Effectively communicate in-progress efforts with a distributed remote team
- Proven capability to learn complex topics and perform engineering tasks in an uncertain problem space
- Comfortable adapting to evolving constraints, processes, and tools
- Willingness to independently research and document existing systems as well as explore potential solutions to improve them
- Capable of taking measured risks and learning from failure; must be able to give and receive constructive criticism
- Aptitude for system analysis utilizing both top-down and bottom-up approaches
- Organized and detail-oriented, but comfortable with high-level, solution-oriented thinking
- Able to apply high-level systems engineering concepts such as ROI, technical debt, and scope creep when evaluating potential solutions
- Driven to pursue improvement but disciplined enough to accept the good over the perfect solution
- Strong communication skills; facilitate technical and programmatic information sharing across the systems team, developers, and with the customer Desired Skills and Experience - Master's degree in Engineering or Computer Science

- Experience with Kubernetes and related containerization technologies (Docker, Helm, k9s)
- Experience and familiarity with Dev Sec Ops  practices, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing
- Proficiency or experience with at least one scripting/programming language such as Python, Bash, VBA, or Go
- Familiarity with cybersecurity best practices for cloud-native and on-premises deployments, PKI, container security scanning, and zero-trust principles
- Experience configuring and monitoring a suite of logging tools (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, Open Search)
- Basic understanding of networking fundamentals (routing, switching, firewalls, VPNs) and secure communications in distributed computing systems
- Experience working with Jira, Confluence, and Git Lab
- Proven leadership skills and the ability to nurture productive relationships with customers
- Knowledge and experience supporting Intelligence Community programs
- Expertise in SIGINT tasking, collection, processing, exploitation, and/or dissemination
- Familiarity with Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF) offerings and how they can be used to facilitate application deployment in on-premises or cloud environments
- Familiarity with ground processing systems
- Experience as an IPT lead or other small-team technical leadership
- Experience modernizing non-cloud-native legacy systems to function in cloud…