Ground Network Systems Engineer – TS/SCI Clearance w/CI Poly Required

About the role

Leffler Consulting is seeking an experienced Ground Network Systems Engineer/Technical Advisor (SETA) with a strong background in Information Technology or Network Engineering. The candidate will play a critical role in the design, implementation, testing, and maintenance of the terrestrial components that support satellite and space-based systems. This role combines technical expertise with systems-level thinking, requiring a broad range of skills to ensure the seamless operation of ground networks. The candidate will support a government program office in charge of ground element command and control (C2) activities for a major program acquisition within a space system program office.

Responsibilities

• Support evaluation of proposed network design and existing network architecture, including scalable, high-performance systems.
• Monitor network performance for optimal operation, identify bottlenecks, and evaluate network analysis identifying areas of improvement and optimization.
• Support evaluation of latest security protocols, risk assessments, and strategies to mitigate network risks.
• Provide advice on network architecture, network performance, and security risks.
• Provide advice on data center floor layout, power and cooling, data storage, infrastructure management, backup, monitoring, operating systems, directory services, identity management, access management, and automation.
• Provide formal and informal feedback on program status and recommendations.
• Provide systems engineering support for requirements development, design, test plans, and requirements verifications through acceptance testing from developers.
• Review and assess the adequacy of ground systems specifications, RADs, RVPs, ICDs, RVRs and system level requirements documentation.
• Review, analyze and coordinate any changes to ground system specifications.
• Participate in defining, managing, testing, verifying and validating collection segment internal and external interfaces.
• Coordinate with different ground elements as required.
• Provide advice on the design and deployment of scalable infrastructure platforms.
• Attend system level design reviews and program management reviews to assess ground system design maturity and requirements compliance. Provide informed technical recommendations to the customer.
• Review, document, and trace ground systems hardware and software requirements.
• Coordinate with other engineers, FFRDC and developer personnel to resolve issues.
• Review ground system requirements allocations for accuracy and ensure requirement allocation documentation is complete and accurate.
• Review acquisition milestone ground systems design documentation for adequacy, accuracy and completeness, and identify cost, schedule and technical risks/opportunities. Provide mitigation strategies through formal and informal comments.
• Assess adequacy of developer verification data and provide recommendations to the GPOC for approval or disapproval with clear commentary demonstrating the logic for the recommendations.
• Develop and maintain productive relationships with prime contractor counterparts and functional counterparts.
• Understand risk management processes and methods for adjudicating program risk mitigation strategies.
• Coordinate across geographic diverse sites for delivery and acceptance testing; requires travel to these sites as well as to developer sites.
• Provide coordination with facilities’ teams during site surveys, installation, and for long-term facilities maintenance of IT equipment and specialized hardware.
• Support request for change (RFC) processes.
• Ability to travel overseas.
• Perform other duties as assigned to support corporate and customer initiatives.

Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Solid communication and documentation skills
• Excellent organizational skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in STEM (science, technical, engineering, math)
• Experience in network protocols, network hardware such as routers, switches, firewalls from major vendors like Cisco, Juniper, and Palo Alto Networks
• Proficient with network monitoring tools such as Wireshark and with virtualization technologies like VMware
• Understanding of SIGINT Satellite systems is a plus