Principal Engineer for IT/Cyber Solutions/Secret Clearance

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• Salary Range – $170,000 to $220,000 based on interview and experience
• Clearance – "Must have" an active Secret Clearance
• Location- "Remote" - The position may be based in the US.
• Education – Master's Degree in technology domain (or equivalent) and 15-20 years' experience. NOTE: work experience may be considered in lieu of degree
• Benefits - Best-in-class benefits program including medical, dental, and vision insurance; a 401(k) program with employer match; paid vacation and sick leave; employer-paid basic life and AD&D insurance; an Employee Assistance Program; and a flexible work environment. Additionally, employees can choose from several voluntary benefits including critical illness coverage; accident insurance; identity theft coverage; pet insurance, and more.

Title: Principal Engineer, IT/Cyber Solutions Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG)

DAWSON is searching for a Principal Engineer to lead the a newly instituted Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG). This position is for a a highly trusted leader that operates within a core function of our technical line of business. The Principal Engineer would act as the primary technical lead for the SIG and support/participate in a number of enterprise-wide IT/Cyber activities. Primarily, this role would be responsible for developing and instituting processes and procedures that would standardize operations across the IT/Cyber Solutions portfolio. This may include quality management, systems engineering procedures, technology build books, As-Built documentation, and security engineering processes. The Principal Engineer will interface with the IT/Cyber Solutions Business Development (BD) team to support the prioritization and creation of appropriate development goals. Job responsibilities may include: creation and execution of the information technology architecture roadmap, working with domain architects to design roadmaps for all domains, and determining operational gaps and developing methods for improvement.

This position will also establish/support the development of the IT/Cyber Solutions Field Engineers and Capability Leads and may include interfacing with vendors to secure rapid engineering support. The Field Engineers and Capability Leads are highly skilled engineers/technicians that are the best in their specific domain. This team will provide internal consulting to operational projects as required. Finally, this role includes direct engineering support for several ongoing technical projects. This includes providing technical/architectural support and may involve limited travel to foreign countries. All travel will be approved by the IT/Cyber Solutions lead and will be on an as-needed basis. While this position requires a depth of technical knowledge and understanding, it is primarily management. Any training or technical execution will be done on an as-needed basis. This role reports directly to the IT/Cyber Solutions Senior Program Manager.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Approximately 50% SIG (Strategic Initiatives Group) support. Immediate duties would include supporting the standup of the SIG. This includes instituting a CDRL (Contract Data Requirements List) quality management process and planning for future strategic initiatives (e.g., engineering pipeline, engineering processes, position descriptions, etc.).
• Approximately 50% operations support. This includes providing lead engineer support to IT/Cyber Solutions portfolio projects as well as security engineering support as required.
• Additionally, this position will support the development and execution of the Engineering Bench pipeline. This includes developing short-term rapid deployment contracts with trusted partners and vendors.

Design Documentation & Compliance/Governance

• Ability to create documentation needed to drive the strategy, architecture and adoption of SIG goals. This may include the following: process/system flows, sequence diagrams, logical/reference architecture, solution architecture, capabilities model, standards, KPIs, etc.
• Define the architecture, design principles, standards and processes
• Identifies patterns, frameworks, and performs value chain analysis that drives the realization of the overall strategy
• Provide initial architectural support during the pre-sales phase of a project
• Support business development team in production of technical responses for RFPs, and Sources Sought

Hands on Time (Dev)

• Conduct peer reviews and audits of engineering documentation created by operation teams
• Hands-on architect who can develop, coach fellow integrators, perform informal/formal reviews of integrated technology and can provide clear direction to engineers
• Drives solutions implementation. Writes epic/user stories & manage the technology/architecture backlog as needed

Customer/Stakeholder Engagement

• Understand the domain/area of your focus. Know your customers, know their architecture, their environment, their pain points, their roadmap. Be their partner to drive time to value and quality.
• Close collaboration with the domain teams engineers and business partners.
• Excellent verbal and written communications with partners and stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to work in multi-national teams
• Patience and flexibility working with foreign customers

Capability/Platform Specific Knowledge & Experience

Expert in DoD networking, IT and cybersecurity. Understand the technology stack inside and out and can provide vision, strategy, guidance that spans leadership and individual developers. Ability to go broad and holistically with in-depth knowledge of technology.

The Principal Engineer provides leadership within the SIG (Strategic Initiatives Group) and across the IT/Cyber Solutions portfolio to initiate, plan, coordinate, and execute engineering activities for delivering Enterprise Management products and services to satisfy program and customer specified requirements. The ideal candidate will have the ability to mentor younger engineers and provide guidance on career growth. Additional skillsets include:

• Provide engineering expertise and guidance for the design, development, implementation, operations and sustainment of Enterprise Management Services that enhance overall system performance and availability.
• Lead the research, analysis, solution design and implementation planning for contract solutions
• Drive strategic technological innovation, demonstrating a breadth and depth of knowledge in all things related to the complex operations of Enterprise Management Services
• Provide technical knowledge and analysis of high-level functional systems analysis, design, integration advice on complex matters that require expert level knowledge of the subject matter for effective implementation.

Desired Qualifications

• Master's Degree in technology domain (or equivalent) and 15-20 years' experience. NOTE: work experience may be considered in lieu of degree
• Experienced as senior leader in the USG (United Stated Government) (director, division chief, military commander or similar); ability to lead successful matrixed teams, thrive in complex organizations and environments, demonstrative success in developing and executing effective strategies, and delivers capabilities on-time and budget.
• Meets the IAT-II baseline certification, in accordance with DoD M or ability to obtain prior to proposal submission
• Must must DOD Secret Clearance
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a team environment
• Excellent oral and written communication skills. Ability to take complex concepts and clearly communicate through the required medium
• Ability to work and communicate with government customer and program office to achieve success. This includes verbal and written (email, PowerPoint, etc.) communication
• Ability to work with foreign nationals (engineers, technicians, foreign military officers) to achieve success
• Experience with standard system engineering lifecycle concepts, architectural frameworks and artifacts to produce working solutions.
• Capable of presenting complicated concepts and course of action to Government and DAWSON leadership
• Experience producing business cases for government projects and experience estimating project work as well as operations and sustainment.
• Experience working and negotiating with vendors for lifecycle support
• Knowledge of U.S. Federal acquisition processes and competitive capture environments
• Architectural experience with current Wide Area Network (WAN)/Local Area Network (LAN)/Campus Area Network (CAN) technology, emerging network and enterprise IT technologies including, but not limited to automation technologies and approaches, end user compute, software-defined solutions)

DAWSON is an Equal Opportunity/VEVRAA federal contractor. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

DAWSON offers a best-in-class benefits program including medical, dental, and vision insurance; a 401(k) program with employer match; paid vacation and sick leave; employer-paid basic life and AD&D insurance; an Employee Assistance Program; and a flexible work environment. Additionally, employees can choose from several voluntary benefits including critical illness coverage; accident insurance; identity theft coverage; pet insurance, and more.

DAWSON gives preference to internal candidates. If no internal candidate meets our qualifications, external candidates will be given consideration.