Senior Systems Engineer

About the role

GovCIO is hiring a Senior Systems Engineer to support the Cloud Data Pipeline (CDP) and engineering services for the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). This hybrid position is located in Kearneysville, WV.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership for planning, designing, and executing the implementation of CDP within USCG-designated cloud environments.
• Oversee the implementation, routine maintenance, and comprehensive sustainment of data ingestion and data sharing capabilities between designated source/recipient systems and the CDP.
• Drive the utilization of the Confluent platform and Apache Kafka to reduce information silos, consolidate data, and ensure data accessibility across the USCG enterprise.
• Perform expert-level technical tasking and provide root-cause troubleshooting support for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance of the CDP platform.
• Oversee complex administrative tasking, performance tuning, and system configurations to support the long-term sustainment of CDP.
• Enforce data integrity, security, and accessibility goals to ensure enterprise data remains discoverable, resilient, and usable.
• Optimize engineering workflows to ensure all CDP implementation and maintenance activities comply with USCG software implementation, configuration, operational, and security standards.
• Develop, maintain, and enforce engineering standards to ensure all CDP sustainment activities comply with USCG software sustainment, configuration management, and lifecycle management standards.

Requirements

• High School diploma with 9+ years of relevant experience (or commensurate experience).
• Active DoD 8570 IAT Level II certification (e.g., Security+ CE, CySA+) in good standing.
• Advanced programming and scripting proficiency in Java, .NET, or Python.
• Expert-level understanding of system engineering processes, requirements analysis, configuration management, and systems architecture concepts.
• Ability to complete the USCG Privileged User Management Program Process (PUMP) to obtain a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) administrative account requiring both a .14 token and a .1c token.
• Prior hands-on production-level architecture, configuration, or management of the Confluent platform and Apache Kafka ecosystems.
• Ability to author technical blueprints, establish engineering guidance, and lead team-based technical discussions.
• Strong communication skills and a proven track record of mentoring junior staff in a fast-paced, mission-critical enterprise data environment.
• Active Secret Clearance required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting U.S. Coast Guard or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programs.
• Strong familiarity with enterprise cloud architectures (AWS or Microsoft Azure) and IT modernization initiatives within a federal environment.
• Direct experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible), pipeline automation, and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Analytical mindset with a focus on continuous technical growth in senior-level systems and data engineering.

Pay

USD $105,000.00 – USD $135,000.00 per year.