Chief Systems Architect

About the role

The Chief Systems Architect will serve as the principal technical advisor to program leadership and the customer, establishing the architectural direction for the Chinook Program. This role involves shaping the future architecture of a complex, mission-critical ecosystem, influencing enterprise technology strategy, and guiding multidisciplinary engineering teams in delivering resilient, secure, and scalable solutions.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the lead architect for a task order, providing architectural guidance and alignment across the broader program as needed.
• Provide authoritative recommendations on technology integration, standards adoption, and data flow optimization.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Release Train Engineers (RTEs), and cross-functional scrum teams to translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Guide technical decision-making across geographically dispersed teams to ensure consistent design patterns, coding standards, and DevSecOps practices.
• Conduct architecture reviews and provide governance to ensure solutions are compliant with federal enterprise architecture frameworks, cybersecurity mandates, and cloud adoption strategies.
• Define, update, and validate architectural patterns and interface specifications for enterprise-level systems.
• Drive cloud-native solution strategies including containerization, CI/CD pipelines, and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) in secure environments.
• Analyze and evaluate emerging technologies to inform future-state architecture and capability roadmaps.
• Represent Leidos and the Chinook Program in high-level technical exchanges, reviews, and governance boards with the customer and Intelligence Community (IC) stakeholders.
• Drive user-facing front-end development and back-end infrastructure that integrates with existing customer systems and end user mission requirements.

Requirements

• US citizenship is required.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or related discipline and 12-15 years of prior relevant experience, or Master’s with 10-13 years of prior relevant experience.
• Proven experience designing, implementing, and managing complex, mission-critical enterprise architectures with the IC.
• Deep expertise in cloud architecture (AWS/C2S/IC GovCloud), data integration, and secure multi-domain systems.
• Experience working with geographically dispersed Agile teams and participating in SAFe ceremonies.
• Familiarity with GEOINT data, the customer’s tools, infrastructure, and tradecraft.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with a demonstrated ability to lead cross-organizational collaboration.
• Knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks (e.g., NIST 800-53), zero-trust architectures, and cloud security principles.
• Certifications such as TOGAF, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Google Professional Cloud Architect, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, CISSP, CCSP, PMP, or RHCA.

Qualifications

• Expertise in at least one high-level programming language like Python, C, C++, or Java, and front-end JavaScript API usage like Svelte or React.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in systems architecture, software development, solution engineering, or enterprise information technology (IT).

Skills

• Strategic vision and execution.
• Consensus-building across diverse stakeholders.
• Innovation-driven approach to problem-solving.
• Technical leadership and mentorship.
• Ability to translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), hybrid cloud, and cloud migration strategies.
• Mentoring junior architects or leading architecture communities of practice.

Benefits

Pay Range: $131,300.00 - $237,350.00

Additional details about benefits can be found at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.