Senior Systems Engineer

Senior Systems Engineer

Location: Gaithersburg, MD; Alexandria, VA; Chantilly, VA; St. Louis, MO; Aurora, CO; Tucson, AZ

Clearance Required: Top Secret with SCI eligibility and ability to obtain Polygraph

Employment Type: Full-Time Regular

Shift: Day

Travel: No

Relocation Assistance: Yes

Company Overview

We are Ennoble First-the people supporting and securing some of the most complex government, defense, and intelligence projects across the country. We ensure today is safe and tomorrow is smarter. Our work has meaning and impact on the world around us, but also on us, and that's important. Ennoble First is your place. You make it your own by embracing autonomy, seizing opportunity, and being trusted to deliver your best every day. We think. We act. We deliver. There is no challenge we can't turn into an opportunity.

Program Summary

This mission is reimagining how the Intelligence Community designs, builds, and integrates its most advanced systems. The team is engineering the future of geospatial intelligence through automation, secure cloud innovation, and real-time data fusion. Senior Systems Engineers on this program architect the backbone of mission operations-merging AI, analytics, and resilient infrastructure to deliver decision advantage at mission speed. This is an environment where cutting-edge technology meets real-world impact, and where innovation directly shapes the national security landscape.

Primary Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior technical lead supporting enterprise-scale systems engineering for mission cloud environments.
• Act as a Databricks administrator, managing workspace configuration, user roles, compute pools, clusters, performance tuning, and troubleshooting in a multi-shard environment supporting hundreds of users worldwide.
• Support AWS infrastructure and services (e.g., EC2, S3, RDS, IAM/IdAM, CloudWatch, Lambda) to sustain secure, scalable systems.
• Configure, document, and maintain configuration control for Databricks resources (users, workgroups, clusters, JSON configurations) and AWS data/storage resources (S3 buckets, access policies).
• Develop and maintain infrastructure-as-code (IaC) using CloudFormation and/or Terraform to ensure repeatable deployments and system consistency.
• Identify automation opportunities and develop scripts/tools to improve platform administration efficiency, reporting, and service metrics collection.
• Collaborate closely with data scientists, developers, analysts, customers, and vendors to translate operational needs into engineering solutions.
• Participate in Agile/DevSecOps activities including sprint planning, daily standups, and retrospectives.
• Produce and maintain engineering, operational, and security documentation aligned with customer standards and program governance.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field and 8+ years of relevant experience, or Master's with 6+ years.
• Active Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility and ability to pass a CI Polygraph.
• Hands-on experience administering Databricks in enterprise or mission-critical environments.
• Proven AWS cloud experience including EC2, S3, RDS, IAM/IdAM, and networking components.
• Experience developing, testing, and maintaining automation scripts and admin productivity tools.
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (CloudFormation, Terraform, or equivalent).
• Familiarity with security and compliance best practices in classified cloud environments.
• Experience working with Agile/Scrum teams and tools like Jira and Confluence.
• Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and ability to work independently and collaboratively in a high-tempo setting.
• Security+ CE (or equivalent) required for privileged admin access within 6 months of hire, if not already held.
• U.S. citizenship required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting DoD or Intelligence Community customers and mission systems.
• Strong SQL proficiency including performance tuning and query optimization.
• Experience with Python data engineering tools (Pandas, Boto3, PySpark, MLOps) and/or Java/Scala in data contexts.
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration (Docker, ECS, EKS).
• Experience with Jupyter Notebook, Power Query/Power Pivot, Databricks notebooks, and large-scale data transformations.
• Exposure to software architecture patterns (client-server, microservices, MVC).
• AWS certifications such as Solutions Architect Associate/Professional or DevOps Engineer.

Compensation

Target Salary Range: $130,000 - $160,000

The Ennoble First pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered include the responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, and applicable laws.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Ennoble First is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by law.

E-Verify Participation

Ennoble First participates in E-Verify. Learn more at www.dhs.gov/E-Verify.

E-Verify is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Ennoble First is committed to providing a diverse and inclusive work environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

Ennoble First participates in E-Verify.

The information below will be listed on our website's careers landing page.

EEO is the Law | Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination

www.dhs.gov/E-Verify

E-Verify is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This business uses E-Verify in its hiring practices to achieve a lawful workforce.