Senior Software Systems Engineer

Job ID: 10096 · Posted: November 4, 2026

About the role

This senior technical leader role combines software engineering, systems engineering, and infrastructure expertise with strong customer engagement and technical leadership. The position maintains a broad, working understanding of the environment — including its applications, operating systems, virtualization platforms, container infrastructure, and supporting services — and evaluates system capabilities and limitations, identifies technical risks and dependencies, and helps translate customer objectives into practical solutions.

As a technical adviser to the customer, the selected candidate will lead technical discussions, clarify system capabilities and configuration options, coordinate across engineering and operations teams, and maintain alignment between customer expectations and technical realities. The role requires investigating technical issues and engaging in implementation when needed, while keeping primary focus on system-level understanding, technical direction, and mission outcomes. We are looking for a technically versatile leader who can connect software, infrastructure, and operations; exercise technical judgment; and guide teams without needing to be the deepest specialist in every technology.

Responsibilities

• Maintains a reliable, system-wide understanding of the software and the environment and how its components interact
• Leads customer discussions, clarifies expectations, and explains what the system can and cannot do
• Identifies technical risks, dependencies, and gaps before they become larger program issues
• Keeps technical decisions aligned with customer objectives, system capabilities, and mission needs

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, management information systems, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 15+ years of relevant experience in software engineering, systems engineering, infrastructure engineering, or a related technical field, with increasing responsibility
• Broad technical understanding of complex software systems and their supporting infrastructure, including the interactions between applications, operating systems, virtualization, containers, and services
• Working knowledge of Linux environments, particularly RHEL, and familiarity with enterprise virtualization or container platforms
• Experience guiding technical execution and coordinating across software, infrastructure, and operations teams
• Strong customer-facing communication skills, including experience leading technical meetings, advising stakeholders, and explaining complex technical concepts and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to translate customer objectives into technical priorities while maintaining a system-level perspective
• Sound technical judgment, initiative, and the ability to balance hands-on problem-solving with broader technical leadership
• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance with the DoD and required program access approvals
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 20% as required by the program

Qualifications

• Experience with VMware and enterprise virtualization environments
• Experience with Red Hat OpenShift, Kubernetes, and containerized applications
• Familiarity with application architecture and development in Python, Java, C++, or other programming languages
• Experience with system administration, platform operations, or infrastructure troubleshooting
• Familiarity with system architecture, requirements management, integration, verification and validation
• Understanding of networking, cybersecurity, and DoD mission operations environments
• Experience with CI/CD, automated deployments, infrastructure as code, or configuration management
• Familiarity with messaging technologies such as gRPC, Kafka, or ZeroMQ
• Experience coordinating across developers, system administrators, infrastructure engineers, vendors, and customer organizations
• Familiarity with Agile development and tools such as Git, Jira, and Confluence
• Active security clearance

Pay

Salary range: $143,000 – $178,000. Salary is commensurate with education and relevant experience. This range serves as a general guideline and may vary based on factors such as role, level, location, market conditions, and individual qualifications, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum target salaries across all US locations. Specific salary details for a candidate’s preferred location can be provided by the recruiter or HR manager during the hiring process.

Benefits

SDL offers competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package. The organization emphasizes a culture of respect, collaboration, empowerment, and accountability — listening with open minds, seeking diverse perspectives, sharing knowledge, involving others, offering support, trusting team members to take ownership, act with integrity, and be accountable, and delivering on commitments to each other and to mission partners.