Senior Network Engineer - WAN

Leidos; Hampton (VA); On-site; USD 92,000 - 167,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos is seeking a cleared Senior WAN Engineer to design, operate, and sustain long‑haul transport across DoD networks. You will lead BGP design, policy enforcement, and multi‑SITE WAN reliability while ensuring STIG compliance and secure enclave connectivity.

You will mentor junior engineers, coordinate with DISA/NOC/SOC teams, and support RMF artifacts and cutovers. The role requires DoD experience and active routing certifications.

Qualifications

• Top Secret clearance eligibility with SCI
• Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of WAN experience or Master’s with 6+ years
• 8+ years hands-on enterprise WAN engineering and operations experience in a DoD environment
• DoD 8570/8140 IAT II certification plus active CCNP Enterprise, JNCIP-SP, or equivalent routing cert

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain BGP routing across the enterprise WAN and peering relationships
• Escalation authority for complex WAN faults and provider circuit issues
• Engineer circuit installations, migrations, and site cutovers with rollback plans
• Develop routing policy standards and topology diagrams
• Configure QoS and traffic engineering for command and control traffic
• Apply DISA STIGs and support RMF artifacts and POA&M closures
• Coordinate with DISA/NOC/SOC and transport providers for maintenance
• Monitor WAN health with SolarWinds/NetFlow and provide capacity guidance
• Manage Type 1 encryptors and key management for secure connectivity
• Mentor junior engineers and represent WAN in technical reviews

Skills

BGP expertise

OSPF/EIGRP

MPLS/VPN

Tx routing policy

Education

Bachelor’s degree +8y experience

Master’s degree +6y experience

Tools

Cisco IOS-XE/IOS-XR/NX-OS

JUNIPER Junos

Job description

Description

The Defense sector at Leidos is seeking a cleared Senior Wide Area Network (WAN) Engineer to engineer, operate, and sustain long-haul transport and routing infrastructure across Department of Defense (DoD/DoW) networks. This individual serves as a Subject Matter Expert on routing for the enterprise WAN — assisting the Network Architect with Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) design, peering, and policy across NIPRNet, SIPRNet, and DISN service delivery points — and is accountable for the availability, performance, and STIG compliance of circuits supporting operational mission traffic worldwide.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain BGP routing architecture across the enterprise WAN, including peering relationships, autonomous system boundaries, and route policy enforcement.
• Serve as the escalation authority for complex WAN faults — route flapping, asymmetric paths, MTU and fragmentation issues, black‑holed prefixes, and provider circuit degradation.
• Engineer and execute circuit installations, migrations, bandwidth upgrades, and site cutovers with documented rollback plans and minimal mission impact.
• Develop and maintain routing policy standards, IP address and ASN allocation plans, and authoritative network documentation including logical and physical topology diagrams.
• Configure and sustain QoS, traffic engineering, and path selection to prioritize command and control, VTC, and VoIP traffic across constrained transport.
• Apply DISA STIGs to routing and transport devices, remediate IAVA findings, and support RMF assessment and authorization artifacts and POA&M closure.
• Coordinate with DISA, NOC/SOC teams, transport providers, and site network personnel to schedule and validate maintenance actions and outage restoration.
• Monitor WAN health and capacity using SolarWinds, NetFlow, and SNMP‑based tooling; produce trend analysis and capacity recommendations for government leadership.
• Manage Type 1 encryptor configuration and key management coordination in support of secure enclave connectivity.
• Mentor junior network administrators, review proposed configuration changes, and represent WAN engineering positions at CCB and technical review boards.

Required Qualifications

• Clearance: US Citizen with at least a Top Secret clearance and the ability to obtain a SCI prior to your start date.
• Education:Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of experience or a Master’s degree with 6+ years of experience. Additional experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• Experience:8+ years of hands‑on enterprise WAN engineering and operations experience, with demonstrated ownership of multi‑site routed transport in a DoD environment.
• Certifications:DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level II certification (Security+ CE or equivalent) plus an active CCNP Enterprise, JNCIP‑SP, or equivalent routing certification.
• BGP Expertise:
  • Expert‑level configuration and troubleshooting of eBGP and iBGP, including route reflectors, confederations, and full‑mesh peering designs.
  • Proven ability to author and tune BGP routing policy using route maps, prefix lists, AS‑path filters, communities, local preference, MED, and AS‑path prepending.
  • Experience establishing and sustaining BGP peering with DISA/DISN service delivery nodes and commercial transport providers.
  • Working knowledge of BGP convergence tuning, dampening, BFD, and route leak/hijack mitigation.

• Routing & Transport:Strong proficiency with OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS L2/L3 VPNs, VRFs, QoS policy for voice and mission traffic, and IPv4/IPv6 dual‑stack operations.
• Platforms:Hands‑on administration of Cisco (IOS‑XE/IOS‑XR/NX‑OS) and Juniper (Junos) routing platforms in an operational production network.
• Encryption & Circuits:Experience with Type 1 inline network encryptors (TACLANE/KG‑175, HAIPE) and with DISA circuit lifecycle actions (TSR/TSO, DISA Direct/SNAP).
• Compliance:Working knowledge of DISA STIGs, RMF, IAVA remediation, and change control under DoD configuration management processes.
• Troubleshooting:Demonstrated packet‑level analysis skill using Wireshark/tcpdump, SPAN/TAP captures, and NetFlow to isolate faults across provider and government segments.
• Availability:Ability to support on‑call rotation, scheduled maintenance windows, and after‑hours cutovers; occasional CONUS/OCONUS travel may be required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced Certification:CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure or Service Provider, JNCIE‑SP, or DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level III (CASP+ or CISSP).
• Segment Routing & MPLS‑TE:Experience with segment routing, MPLS traffic engineering, or EVPN in a large‑scale transport core.
• SD‑WAN:Hands‑on experience with Cisco SD‑WAN or Juniper SDWAN or comparable overlay transport in a DoD/DoW deployment.
• Automation:Proficiency with Python, Ansible, for configuration deployment, compliance auditing, and network state validation.
• DoD Enterprise Services:Familiarity with JRSS, DODIN operations, and DoD boundary/CDS architectures.
• Optical Transport:Working knowledge of DWDM, SONET/SDH, and carrier Ethernet handoffs supporting long‑haul circuits.

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.

Pay Range

Pay Range $92,300.00 - $166,850.00

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.

About Leidos

Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $16.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2025. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.