Systems Architect, SME

Provide warfighters with reliable strike planning and execution tools for Theater Missile Programs while modernizing and expanding beyond Tomahawk missiles. Our work includes developing and maintaining proprietary software, offering full lifecycle support from design to deployment, and ensuring compliance with cybersecurity standards., Peraton is seeking a talented and skilled Systems Architect, SME (AI/ML) tojoin our Defense Development Team. This position is located in Reston, VA.

As part of a collaborative, high-impact integrated product development team, you’ll work on next-generation development and AI/ML capabilities hosted on AWS Cloud infrastructure. This is your chance to help shape innovative AI/ML solutions that make a real difference for our customers’ missions.

The Systems Architect, SME (AI/ML) provides expertise and hands-on development for AI-based mission solutions. The role involves rapid prototyping of new AI-based capabilities using AI-coding assistance tools as well as transitioning new solutions into the production environments. Additionally the SME provides cloud software research, development, and engineering services to include requirements analysis, software development, installation, integration, evaluation, enhancement, sustainment, testing, validation, and issue diagnosis/resolution.

• AI/ML Development and Integration: Experience with Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) frameworks
• Cloud Expertise:Deep experience in AWS Cloud Architecture, SDKs, APIs, and cloud services integration
• IaC & DevOps:Hands-on with CloudFormation or Terraform, and modern CI/CD pipelines
• Programming Proficiency:Strong in Java for distributed systems with a solid grasp of networking, multi-threading, and concurrency
• Containers & Orchestration:Knowledge of Kubernetes and microservices architecture
• Security-Minded:Working knowledge of cloud security principles and compliance best practices
• Scripting & Systems:Competent in Linux environments with scripting skills in Python, Ruby, Perl, or similar, * Education: 16 years with BS/BA degree, 14 years with MS/MA, 10 years with a PhD or 20 years of experience in lieu of a degree.
• Clearance: active Top Secret clearance required.
• Ten (10) or more years of directly related experience in software development/engineering; including requirements analysis, software development, installation, integration, evaluation, enhancement, maintenance, testing, and problem diagnosis/resolution A minimum of ten (10) years of experience in software development/engineering, including requirements analysis, software development, installation, integration, evaluation, enhancement, maintenance, testing, and problem diagnosis/resolution.
• Experience developing mission planning software for defense customers.
• A minimum of four (4) years of experience developing software with high level languages such as Java, C, C++
• Demonstrated ability to work with OpenSource (NoSQL) products that support highly distributed, massively parallel computation needs such as Hbase, Acumulo, Big Table, etc.
• Demonstrated work experience with the Map Reduce programming model and technologies such as Hadoop, Hive, Pig, etc.
• Demonstrated work experience with the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), JSON and/or BSON
• Demonstrated work experience developing Restful services
• 3 years of experience developing software for UNIX/Linux (Redhat versions 3-5) operating systems.
• Demonstrated work experience in the requirements analysis and design of at least one Object Oriented system and developing solutions integrating and extending FOSS/COTS products.
• 3 years of experience in software integration and software testing, to include developing and implementing test plans and test scripts.
• Demonstrated technical writing skills and shall have generated technical documents in support of a software development project.

In addition, the candidate will have demonstrated experience in at least two (2) of the desired characteristics:

• Experience developing using AI-coding assist tools and embedding AI agents in the developed solution
• Experience deploying applications in a cloud environment.
• Understanding of Big-Data Cloud Scalability (Amazon, Google, Facebook)
• Experience designing and developing automated analytic software, techniques, and algorithms.
• Experience with taxonomy construction for analytic disciplines, knowledge areas and skills.
• Experience developing and deploying: data driven analytics; event driven analytics; sets of analytics orchestrated through rules engines.
• Experience with linguistics (grammar, morphology, concepts).
• Experience developing and deploying analytics that discover and exploit social networks.
• Experience documenting ontologies, data models, schemas, formats, data element dictionaries, software application program interfaces and other technical specifications.
• Experience developing and deploying analytics within a heterogeneous schema environment.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience with Large Language Models (LLM), Agentic AI, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Expertise in AWS Cloud Architecture design and development
• Proficiency in using AWS SDKs and APIs
• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like CloudFormation or Terraform
• Skilled in Continuous Integration, Deployment, Testing and Monitoring practices
• Knowledge and skill in implementing and using observability tools (e.g. Elasticsearch, OpenSearch)
• Java programming for distributed systems, with experience in networking and multi-threading
• Agile development experience with source code management practices and tools
• Well-grounded in Linux fundamentals and knowledge in at least one scripting language (e.g. Python, Ruby, Perl, etc.)
• Familiarity with microservices software development techniques and container-orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes)
• Knowledge of security and compliance best practices

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.

Benefits Statement: Peraton offers eligible employees a variety of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, health savings account, short/long term disability, EAP, parental leave, 401(k), paid time off (PTO) for vacation, and company paid holidays. A full listing of available benefits can be viewed at https://www.careers.peraton.com/benefits.

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world’s leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land, sea, space, air, and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day, our employees solve the most daunting challenges that our customers face. Visit peraton.com to learn how we’re keeping people around the world safe and secure.