Lead Systems Engineer

Leidos is seeking an Infrastructure Implementation Engineer to join the Air Traffic Business Area within the Homeland Sector, supporting the design, implementation, and lifecycle management of lab and data center infrastructure. This role is at the forefront of FAA modernization programs, ensuring well-engineered software development and test environments for next-generation air traffic and flight service systems.

About the role

You will own the low-level design layer, including rack elevations, wiring lists, port assignments, cable schedules, power budgets, methods of procedure, and as-built documentation. This hands-on engineering role involves running design reviews, commissioning installations, maintaining configuration baselines, and providing technical direction to hardware technicians. You serve as the technical authority on the lab floor, ensuring physical infrastructure documentation remains accurate, current, and traceable.

Responsibilities

• Develop low-level infrastructure designs from approved architectural concepts, including rack elevation drawings, wiring lists, port/patch-panel assignments, cable schedules, and bills of material.
• Produce installation work packages (methods of procedure, sequencing, prerequisites, acceptance criteria) to enable technicians to execute independently while meeting corporate and customer deliverable and auditable requirements.
• Commission new installations and resolve punch-list items, confirming implemented state matches design intent, coordinating with system administrators on readiness verification, and driving discrepancies to closure.
• Maintain authoritative as-built documentation and configuration baselines by processing redlines, reconciling drawings against physical state, keeping version control current, and ensuring traceability from design to implementation to change history.
• Provide technical work direction to hardware technicians, assigning tasks from active work packages, monitoring progress, resolving field questions, and redirecting effort when priorities shift.
• Serve as the engineering escalation point for physical/integration troubleshooting, including Layer 1 failures, patching discrepancies, optic faults, power-feed issues, and documentation mismatches.
• Lead design reviews for your environments, preparing and presenting review packages, defending implementation decisions, and driving findings to resolution before construction proceeds.
• Interface with procurement and engineering departments on hardware delivery and RMA.
• Develop and improve engineering standards, templates, labeling schemes, and repeatable deployment processes.
• Support compliance implementation by ensuring physical installations conform to applicable security standards, network segmentation requirements, cable-path separation, and labeling standards.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, information technology, computer science, or a related field and at least 4 years of relevant experience, or a master’s degree with at least 2 years of experience.
• Demonstrated experience producing detailed infrastructure documentation.
• Practical understanding of data center or lab infrastructure: structured cabling, power distribution, rack systems, and network hardware.
• Experience with commissioning, validating, or accepting infrastructure installations.
• Familiarity with networking fundamentals sufficient to make port-assignment and connectivity decisions (switching, VLANs, patching, fiber/copper media selection).
• Proficiency with Visio, CAD, or equivalent diagramming tools for rack layouts, floor plans, and wiring diagrams.
• Comfortable working across multiple concurrent projects with shifting priorities and compressed timelines.
• Willingness to learn complex, non-standard environments that take time to understand.
• Clear and effective verbal and written communication, able to translate complex architectural intent into unambiguous, executable work products.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a favorable Public Trust investigation.
• US Citizenship.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI-assisted engineering workflows and tool-building (e.g., Claude Code, Copilot, custom automation leveraging large language models for documentation generation, validation, or data extraction).
• Net+, CCNA, or equivalent network implementation experience.
• Experience with infrastructure source-of-truth platforms (NetBox or similar).
• Experience with scripting or automation applied to infrastructure documentation, validation, or data extraction.
• Familiarity with configuration management and change-control processes in regulated or quality-managed environments (ISO 9001 or equivalent).
• Experience in a technical leadership capacity.
• Familiarity with data center infrastructure design standards (TIA-942 or similar).
• Prior experience in FAA, civil aviation, or government lab environments.

Pay

Pay Range: $87,100.00 - $157,450.00. 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.

Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. 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.