Sr. Systems Engineer

Join Leidos and help shape the future of geospatial intelligence! We are seeking an experienced and innovative Senior Systems Engineer to support the Maru Program with our Intelligence Community customer. If you’re passionate about solving complex technical challenges, thrive in a fast-paced Agile environment, and enjoy collaborating with high-performing teams to deliver mission-critical capabilities, this is your opportunity to make a direct impact on national security.

What You'll Do

As a key member of our engineering team, you’ll help design, integrate, and evolve cutting-edge systems that enable our customers’ mission. You’ll work alongside software engineers, cybersecurity professionals, and government partners to transform mission needs into scalable, secure, and resilient solutions using modern engineering practices and DevSecOps principles. At Leidos, you’ll have the opportunity to innovate, lead, and grow while contributing to technologies that matter.

Please note Gaithersburg, MD is the program’s primary work location.

Clearance Level Required:

Active Top Secret/SCI with the ability to successfully pass a Polygraph examination.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead systems engineering activities across the full system lifecycle, including requirements analysis, architecture development, integration, testing, deployment, and sustainment.
• Collaborate with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and Agile development teams to refine features and translate mission needs into technical solutions.
• Develop and maintain system architectures, interface definitions, operational concepts (CONOPS), and technical documentation.
• Perform systems decomposition, functional analysis, allocation, and traceability using industry-standard systems engineering practices.
• Support backlog refinement, sprint planning, and technical roadmap development.
• Evaluate system performance, identify technical risks, and develop mitigation strategies.
• Coordinate integration across multiple development teams and external mission partners.
• Support verification and validation activities, ensuring requirements are fully tested and documented.
• Participate in design reviews, architecture reviews, technical interchange meetings, and customer briefings.
• Support DevSecOps initiatives and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) processes.
• Ensure compliance with customer and Intelligence Community engineering standards and security requirements.

Required Qualifications:

• US citizenship is required per contract.
• Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineer, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering or a related STEM discipline and 8-12 years of prior relevant experience or Master’s with 6-10 years of prior relevant experience.
• 8+ years of professional systems engineering experience.
• Experience support customer, DoD, or Intelligence Community programs.
• DoD 8140/8570 Compliance: Must possess an active CompTIA Security+ (or higher baseline certification) to satisfy IAM Level I / IAT Level II requirements.
• Must hold an active Systems Engineering Professional certification from the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), at any of the following levels:
  • Associate Systems Engineering Professional (ASEP)
  • Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP)
  • Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP)
• Strong understanding of systems engineering principles and the systems development lifecycle.
• Experience working with Agile frameworks (Scrum, SAFe, Kanban).
• Experience with requirements management tools such as Jira, Confluence, or similar.
• Knowledge of cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GovCloud).
• Experience with system integration, interface management, and enterprise architecture.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps pipelines and CI/CD tools.
• Ability to work effectively in a collaborative, cross-functional team environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting the customers’ mission systems or GEOINT programs.
• Experience with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and SysML.
• Familiarity with Cameo Systems Modeler or similar modeling tools.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, and containerized applications.
• Knowledge of microservices architecture.
• Experience with REST APIs and distributed systems.
• SAFe Agilist (SA), Scrum Master, or Agile certification.
• Experience supporting cloud-native or hybrid cloud environments.

#Maru

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.