Senior Tech Lead - Cyber Systems Engineering

Joint Activities

$176K — $282K *
Aerospace & Defense
15+ years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 20+ years of Systems Engineering leadership experience or equivalent total experience with education substitution.
  • 5+ years of experience with complex engineering systems across multiple disciplines.
  • Proven ability to lead multi-disciplinary technical teams in hands-on roles.
  • Strong background in Linux and Windows administration for system security and troubleshooting.
  • Knowledge of security best practices and compliance frameworks.
  • Experience with automation tools and scripting languages like Powershell, Bash, or Python.
  • Exceptional customer communication skills to simplify technical issues.

Responsibilities

  • Act as the senior technical authority for system architecture and engineering decisions.
  • Lead cross-functional teams to align research with infrastructure needs.
  • Provide hands-on support for technical issues, including root-cause analysis.
  • Engineer secure system baselines for multi-OS environments.
  • Drive compliance improvements in alignment with security governance.
  • Lead design and integration of IT and telecommunications systems.
  • Serve as the primary technical interface to the customer for project updates.

Benefits

  • Potential for an increased sign-on bonus based on eligibility.
  • Full-time on-site work at a customer location.
  • Opportunities for continuous security posture improvements.
  • Engagement with a diverse range of complex engineering systems.
  • Direct influence on customer mission readiness and technical execution.
Full Job Description
Responsibilities

Peraton Labs is seeking a poly cleared Senior Tech Lead – Cyber Systems Engineer to serve as the hands-on senior technical lead for a highly complex environment of classified and unclassified systems. You’ll lead and mentor cross-functional Peraton Labs research, infrastructure, security, and software support teams, interface directly with the customer, and direct subcontractor personnel to ensure systems are mission-ready, resilient, and compliant.

 

This position requires full-time on-site work at a customer site near College Park, MD.

 

Key responsibilities may include

  • Technical leadership & execution
    • Act as the senior technical authority for system architecture, engineering decisions, and operation execution across multi-domain environments
    • Lead and coordinate teams of internal and subcontractor personnel across our research and infrastructure teams, ensuring infrastructure needs align with execution of research
    • Provide hands-on engineering support for complex issues: root-cause analysis, performance tuning, reliability improvements, and lifecycle modernization
  • Secure systems & security posture
    • Engineer and maintain secure system baselines for a multi-OS environment, including hardening, patching, config management, and privileged access control
    • Drive compliance and continuous security posture improvements aligned to applicable governance (e.g., RMF/NIST controls, policies, and security plans as outlined by the program/customer)
    • Partner with compliance stakeholders to implement and validate technical controls and ensure audit readiness
  • Infrastructure, networking, and operations
    • Lead design, development, integration, and delivery of IT and telecommunications systems/solutions
    • Oversee network and systems operations: segmentation, routing/switching/WAN considerations, DNS/DHCP, firewall rulesets, and zero trust-aligned patterns where applicable
    • Establish operational practices: monitoring/alerting, backup/restore, capacity planning, and change control
  • Customer engagement & delivery management
    • Serve as a primary technical interface to the customer: brief status, risks, architecture decisions, and tradeoffs
    • Direct subcontract personnel and coordinate across stakeholders to deliver outcomes on schedule with high technical quality

*This position may be eligible for an increased sign-on bonus. Eligibility, bonus amount, and applicable terms and conditions will be discussed during the recruiting process*

 

#MDFSP

Qualifications

Required qualifications

  • 20+ years of experience in planning and leading Systems Engineering efforts and a bachelor’s degree in system engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering Management, or related discipline. Five years of additional relevant experience may be substituted for bachelor’s degree, for a total of 25 years of experience
  • 5+ years of recent demonstrated experience working with large complex engineering systems and subsystems, with expertise applied across multiple engineering disciplines such as electrical, computer, software, telecommunications, information security, and networking
  • Demonstrated success leading technical teams (multi-discipline, mixed prime/subcontract, customer-facing) as a hands-on contributor
  • Strong Linux and Windows administration background (build/configure/harden/troubleshoot)
  • Experience implementing security best practices
  • Proficiency in automation/scripting (e.g., Powershell, Bash, Python) and experience with configuration management and repeatable deployments
  • Strong customer communication skills (written and verbal) with the ability to translate complex technical issues into clear risk/impact statements
  • Ability to plan work, drive accountability, manage technical risk, and make sound engineering tradeoffs
  • This position requires an active/current TS/SCI w/ Polygraph.

 

Additional desired qualifications

  • Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and automation at scale (e.g., Ansible, Terraform, CI/CD)
  • Containerization and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and securing those environments
  • Cloud/hybrid architecture and security experience (AWS/Azure/GCP)
  • Advanced cyber operations experience (e.g., Red/Purple/Blue team, adversary emulation, pentest tooling, threat hunting)
  • Experience building runbooks, standard operating procedures, and repeatable onboarding patterns for systems and staff
  • Experience supporting high-compliance or mission environments, including multi-stakeholder delivery and contract/subcontract oversight

 

#mdpm

Target Salary Range$176,000 - $282,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.

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