Systems Engineer - Senior

About Bridge Defense. Bridge Defense is redefining how modern defense technology is delivered. Based in Washington, D.C., we are built for the dynamic mission environment facing the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and federal law enforcement agencies. We provide full-spectrum national security solutions that combine secure infrastructure, cleared talent, and mission-ready software to meet evolving defense challenges.
Our services include secure software development in classified environments and the design and implementation of advanced IT and cybersecurity capabilities ranging from secure cloud architectures and enterprise infrastructure to data center operations, scientific analysis, cutting‑edge cyber defense, and intelligence analysis.
We are led by technologists and veterans with firsthand mission experience, which enables us to understand both the operational realities and the innovation needed to succeed. Our approach is agile and outcome‑based, delivering results in weeks rather than months whenever possible.
At Bridge Defense we value people, integrity, and excellence. We foster an environment where innovation thrives in support of traditional mission requirements. Our team members receive competitive compensation, robust benefits, professional development and certification opportunities, and clear paths for growth while working on the nation’s most critical projects.

• Innovation & Responsiveness:
  We push beyond legacy models with efficient, tech‑led solutions built to scale and evolve.
• Trusted Performance:
  Security, compliance, and deep experience in delivering to demanding environments guides all we do.
• Mission Focused Expertise:
  From veteran leadership to cleared engineers, our people understand both the technology and the mission.

Bridge Defense is seeking a highly qualified System Engineer to join a mission‑focused team that designs, engineers, and sustains applications, services, microservices, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and supporting infrastructure. This effort requires defining and implementing technical architectures that meet current mission needs while anticipating future capabilities, eliminating overlap, and reducing technical debt. The team continuously improves sustainment and development practices to reinvest resources into new capabilities and to enhance the effectiveness, quality, resilience, and robustness of the underlying technology stack.
Our applications support intelligence analysis and collection management, directly serving intelligence analysts and operators across the Intelligence Community and Combatant Commands. The System Engineer serves as both a senior technical designer and a hands‑on engineer across multiple software development and infrastructure efforts, including JWICS, Stone Ghost, and SIPRNet. This role selects and shapes architecture patterns and technical standards in coordination with the customer and systems engineering teams, then helps implement those architectures alongside development teams.

The position also recommends new technologies, integration approaches, and processes for complex distributed systems, ensuring that solution designs and implementations meet mission needs and non‑functional requirements, including security, performance, scalability, maintainability, and reliability.
The System Engineer produces and maintains architecture artifacts such as system and service interaction diagrams, data flows, deployment topologies, and interface definitions, and oversees their implementation by development and operations teams. The role collaborates with users, system engineers, software engineers, cybersecurity personnel, and hardware engineers to derive system and software requirements and…