Senior Systems Engineer

RPMGlobal; Bethesda (MD); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Base-2 Solutions in Bethesda, MD seeks a Senior Systems Engineer to lead the design, development, and deployment of software supporting the DIA-NMEC DOMEX platform. You will help decompose high-priority requirements and drive architecture, integration, and testing efforts across government and contractor teams.

The role emphasizes scalable, reliable, and secure systems, with mentoring of engineers, backlog management, and SAFe/Agile program increment participation to deliver continuous

Qualifications

• BS in Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or related field with 12-15 years of prior relevant experience (or Masters with 10-13 years).
• Software development experience in Java or Python.
• Experience in Agile software development with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead and direct all aspects of team development efforts.
• Plan, design, and oversee software development solutions.
• Manage requirements analysis, design, integration, and testing.

Skills

Java

Python

Agile

GitLab

Jira

Confluence

Communication

Leadership

Mentoring

Cross-functional

Education

BS in Engineering/CS

MS in Engineering/CS

Experience equivalent

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

PostgreSQL

AWS

CI/CD

GraphQL

Keycloak

Terraform

CloudFormation

Job description

Position Summary

Base-2 Solutions is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer to play a critical role in the design, engineering, development, and deployment of software supporting the DIA-NMEC DOMEX Technology Platform (DTP). The position supports the DOMEX Data Discovery Platform (D3P) Modernization program and DIA-OSIC's mission to centralize and standardize Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) TCPED across the DoD and IC enterprise. The Senior Systems Engineer will work closely with leadership and government leads to decompose high priority requirements into delivered solutions, executing requirements analysis, design, system integration, and testing. The role involves leading an application team to maintain continuous software enhancements and deployments, managing risks, escalating impediments, and driving continuous process improvement.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage, direct, coordinate, and provide technical direction for all aspects of the team's development efforts.
• Plan, design, and oversee implementation of software development solutions.
• Provide technical support, coordination, and execution of systems engineering activities including feature/requirements analysis, design, implementation planning, integration and test, sustainment, documentation, deployment, and system assessment.
• Ensure sound engineering practices are followed.
• Provide direction for interpretation and application of policies and procedures to engineering and development activities.
• Develop a working knowledge of government business processes and provide recommendations accordingly.
• Collaborate with other development teams to identify and develop high-value integrations with other systems/applications.
• Develop, manage, and continually improve the backlog of work items for an Agile scrum team, updating and prioritizing stories and epics based on stakeholder feedback.
• Support Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program increment planning and execution through creation of work tickets in GitLab and program/system documentation.
• Lead and participate in Agile ceremonies including daily stand up, planning, reviews, and retrospectives.
• Monitor increment and sprint progress and work with the team to identify and remove impediments and dependencies.
• Perform backlog refinement regularly, including decomposing features into stories, prioritizing backlog items, refining acceptance criteria and complexity estimates, or removing irrelevant tickets.
• Accept or reject completed work based on defined acceptance criteria to ensure delivery of high-quality software.
• Lead the design and architecture of backend systems and services.
• Drive initiatives related to scalability, reliability, and performance across the engineering team.
• Develop requirements and design documents.
• Contribute to and review RFCs, and requirements, design, and architecture reviews.
• Coordinate with Test Team to develop and monitor automated system integration tests to identify failed modules and components.
• Manage individual project priorities, deliverables, and deadlines.
• Provide input to software components of system design including hardware/software trade-offs, software reuse, use of COTS/GOTS, and requirements analysis and synthesis.
• Foster collaboration among team members to provide quality service and products to customers.
• Act as a mentor to mid-level and junior engineers, offering guidance on best practices and career growth.

Required Qualifications

• BS in Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or related field and 12 - 15 years of prior relevant experience or Masters with 10 - 13 years of prior relevant experience. Additional years of experience in lieu of degree are acceptable.
• Software development experience in languages such as Java or Python.
• Experience as a Systems Engineer, Product Owner, or similar role in an Agile software development team.
• Experience with requirements and design documentation, including process flow diagrams.
• Demonstrated ability to break down complex problems into actionable steps.
• Experience managing and prioritizing product backlogs effectively.
• Strong understanding of Agile methodologies and experience with tools like GitLab, Jira, and Confluence.
• Experience facilitating scrum for the team (Planning, Retrospective, Grooming & Review/Demo).
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to articulate technical and non-technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Proven ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, design, and project management teams.
• Demonstrated ability to manage expectations and maintain strong relationships with government and contractor stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Kafka or other message passing systems.
• Experience on a production/enterprise system.
• Cloud infrastructure experience.
• Experience with Appian or other low-code software technologies.
• Experience with PostgreSQL.
• Experience with containerization, especially Docker.
• DevOps practices and tools including Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tools and practices, especially GitLab or Jenkins.
• Experience with GraphQL.
• Experience with Keycloak.
• Proactive in identifying tech debt, systemic issues, and areas for team/process improvement.
• Expertise building and maintaining microservices in production in Kubernetes.
• Understanding of Elasticsearch internals: sharding, performance tuning, analyzers, query DSL.
• Elasticsearch certifications or other program stack related certifications.
• Strong Kafka experience: event design, stream processing, performance tuning.
• Familiarity with schema registries and Kafka streaming patterns.
• Familiarity with authentication and authorization products such as Keycloak.
• Experience with security best practices for services: authN/Z, secrets management, data protection.
• Hardware on-prem and cloud-based deployments using Kubernetes.
• Proficiency with infrastructure-as-code (e.g., CloudFormation, Terraform, Pulumi).
• Experience of production/enterprise systems at scale.
• Knowledge of distributed systems concepts (e.g., idempotency, eventual consistency).
• Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers.
• Strong testing discipline with a focus on automation, coverage, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on development and/or scripting experience, especially Java and Python.
• Experience with AWS cloud-based architecture, services, and software development.

Required Education and Experience Equivalency

• BS in Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or related field with 12 - 15 years of prior relevant experience.
• Masters degree with 10 - 13 years of prior relevant experience.
• Additional years of experience in lieu of degree.

Required Certifications

• None specified.

Required Security Clearance

• Active Top Secret/SCI