Senior Systems Architect

Leidos; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos is seeking a Sr. Systems Architect to lead the design and governance of mission-critical IT architectures for an Intelligence Community program.

This role requires translating complex requirements into scalable, secure design artifacts while collaborating with software engineers, product owners, and stakeholders in an Agile environment. The ideal candidate brings extensive experience with enterprise IT architectures, traceability, and formal modeling tools, along with a TS/SCI clearance

Qualifications

• US citizenship required per contract.
• Bachelor's degree in a technical discipline and 8–12 years of relevant experience.
• Active Top Secret/SCI clearance with ability to pass a polygraph.
• Experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale systems.
• Ability to map and manage complex traceability matrices.
• Experience with architecture tools (Sparx EA, Cameo, MagicDraw).
• Prior Intel/DoD contract experience.
• Knowledge of DoDAF and TOGAF.
• Strong writing and verbal communication skills.
• Analytical capabilities to deconstruct legacy architectures.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and mature IT architecture baselines into scalable design models.
• Develop, maintain, and govern architecture documentation across domains.
• Ensure traceability between architecture artifacts, requirements, and deployments.
• Use architecture tools to generate and manage blueprints and diagrams.
• Lead architectural planning, reviews, and cross-team execution.
• Collaborate with contract teams to align architecture with mission objectives.
• Identify design gaps, technical debt, or security risks and propose mitigations.
• Present complex concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ensure designs adhere to IC directives and EA standards.
• Mentor downstream development and engineering teams.

Skills

US citizenship

Traceability matrices

Technical writing

Analytical skills

Enterprise-scale systems design

Agile environment experience

Security/compliance mindset

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering or related technical discipline

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

Sparx EA

Cameo

MagicDraw

Job description

Join Us in Building High-Impact, Mission-Critical Architecture

Ready to help build a vision and strategy for success? Join Leidos on the Chinook Program, supporting an Intelligence Community customer, and help design and deliver accurate, meaningful, and insightful architecture and design products.

As a Sr. Systems Architect, you will play a critical role at the intersection process improvement, agile development, and IT strategy. You'll work alongside talented software engineers, systems engineers, product owners, testers, and mission stakeholders to transform challenging operational requirements into viable design artifacts.

This is an opportunity to have a direct impact on an important national security mission while working in a collaborative Agile environment where your ideas, technical expertise, and attention to technical detail will matter.

Our Ideal Candidate

We’re looking for someone who is more than an experienced architect. You are passionate about how to simplify complex problems and communicate for success.

You naturally ask, “How does all this work?” You enjoy taking complicated IT systems and can describe them with artifacts that are intuitive, efficient, and elegant. You can speak the language of both designers and engineers, understand the realities of defining and delivering software in an Agile environment, and aren't afraid to challenge an approach when you see a better solution.

If you're excited by the opportunity to design and engineer the next generation of mission-focused IT systems, we'd love to hear from you.

Position may be performed in the following locations below. Please note Gaithersburg, MD is the program's primary work location.

• Gaithersburg, MD
• Alexandria, VA
• Chantilly, VA
• Englewood, CO
• St. Louis, MO
• Tucson, AZ

Clearance Level Required

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

Primary Responsibilities

• Analyze and mature existing IT architecture baselines into comprehensive, accurate, and scalable design models.
• Develop, maintain, and govern detailed IT architecture documentation across system, data, and security domains.
• Establish and maintain strict traceability between architectural artifacts, mission requirements, and deployed solutions.
• Utilize industry-standard architecture development tools to generate and manage structural blueprints and diagrams.
• Integrate architectural planning, review, and execution
• Collaborate with cross-functional contract teams to ensure the architecture aligns with overarching mission objectives.
• Identify design gaps, technical debt, or security risks in current systems and architect viable mitigation strategies.
• Lead technical reviews and present complex architectural concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ensure all IT designs adhere to Enterprise Architecture standards and Intelligence Community (IC) directives.
• Provide technical mentorship and architectural guidance to downstream development and engineering teams.
• Drive continuous improvement in documentation standards and architecture modeling practices across the contract.

Basic Qualifications

• US citizenship is required per contract.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering or related technical discipline and 8-12 years of prior relevant experience or equivalent experience.
• Active Top Secret/SCI with the ability to successfully pass a Polygraph examination.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing complex, enterprise-scale systems and solutions.
• Proven ability to create, map, and manage complex traceability matrices between design artifacts and requirements.
• Experience with advanced architecture development and modeling tools (e.g., Sparx EA, Cameo, MagicDraw).
• Prior experience working on contract teams supporting the Intelligence (Intel) industry or DoD environments.
• Solid foundational understanding of standard enterprise architecture frameworks (e.g., DoDAF, TOGAF).
• Excellent technical writing and verbal communication skills tailored to producing meaningful design documentation.
• Strong analytical capabilities necessary to deconstruct, interpret, and refine legacy architectural designs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree with 6-10 years of prior relevant experience.
• Active professional certifications (e.g., TOGAF 9 Certified, Certified Systems Engineering Professional - CSEP).
• Demonstrated experience operating effectively within a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) environment.
• Experience designing or documenting cloud-native architectures (AWS/C2S, Azure) within classified environments.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps practices and integrating architecture compliance checks into CI/CD pipelines.
• Advanced expertise in Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methodologies and practical application.
• Previous experience serving as a Lead IT Architect on a large-scale government or Intel contract.
• Deep understanding of data flow modeling, data gover