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Department Summary:MITRE's Classified Enterprise Infrastructure Services team is seeking a Principal Engineer in support of MITRE's enterprise classified infrastructure service portfolio. The successful candidate will have primary responsibility for the development, operational, and sustainment of one or more capabilities or services in the portfolio.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership & Team Management
- Lead, mentor, and develop a large, diverse IT team (Tier 1 & 2 support, senior engineers, and lead engineers) on the Bedford campus.
- Coordinate closely with the peer Group Leader in McLean to align priorities, share best practices, and ensure consistent processes and standards across sites.
- Assist team members with setting individual and team goals aligned to organizational objectives.
- Provide ongoing coaching and feedback throughout the year and conduct formal mid-year and end-of-year performance assessments.
- Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and customer focus.
- Manage staffing levels, workload distribution, and professional development plans.
Operations, Sustainment & Lifecycle Management
- Oversee day-to-day operations of multiple classified networks (Secret and Top Secret collateral) supporting multiple sites.
- Ensure availability, reliability, and performance of core services including Splunk, Exchange, VMware, Active Directory, Trellix, CommVault, SharePoint, and related infrastructure.
- Direct Tier 1 and Tier 2 support activities, ensuring timely incident resolution, effective problem management, and high-quality customer service.
- Coordinate planned maintenance, patching, change management, and system upgrades with minimal disruption to users.
- Manage the full lifecycle of hardware and software assets, including planning, procurement, deployment, maintenance, refresh, and decommissioning.
- Maintain accurate inventory and lifecycle tracking for systems, licenses, and hardware across all supported networks and sites.
Network & Systems Engineering
- Manage senior and lead engineers in the design, implementation, and enhancement of network and system architecture across multiple security domains and locations.
- Oversee planning and execution of infrastructure projects, expansions, and technology refresh efforts.
- Ensure integration and interoperability of systems supporting enterprise capabilities, including logging/monitoring (Splunk), messaging (Exchange), virtualization (VMware), identity and access (Active Directory), endpoint security (Trellix), backup/recovery (Commvault), and collaboration platforms (SharePoint).
- Provide oversight for indirect support of project VMs, ensuring underlying infrastructure and shared services meet project requirements.
Security, Compliance & Risk Management
- Ensure all networks and systems comply with applicable security policies, accreditation requirements, and regulatory standards for Secret and Top-Secret collateral environments.
- Partner with security, compliance, and accreditation teams to support audits, assessments, and continuous monitoring activities.
- Implement and enforce configuration management, access control, patch management, and change control processes aligned with security and compliance requirements.
- Identify operational and security risks, develop mitigation strategies, and drive remediation efforts.
Financial Management & Procurement
- Work with the Department Manager to develop and manage budgets for Other Direct Costs (ODC), capital expenditures, and labor associated with network and infrastructure operations.
- Plan and prioritize hardware and software investments in line with mission needs, lifecycle requirements, and budget constraints.
- Oversee and coordinate hardware and software procurement activities, including requirements definition, vendor engagement, ordering, acceptance, and deployment.
- Track and report on spending, variances, and forecasted needs for ODC, capital, and labor to ensure fiscal discipline and alignment with organizational priorities.
Customer & Stakeholder Engagement
- Serve as the primary point of contact for Bedford-based stakeholders for network and infrastructure services, while coordinating with the McLean Group Leader for enterprise-wide issues.
- Collaborate with internal customers, program leaders, and other IT groups to understand requirements, prioritize work, and align services with mission needs.
- Communicates status, risks, and impacts of operational issues and projects to leadership and key stakeholders.
- Manage customer expectations and ensure high levels of satisfaction with IT services.
Process Improvement & Strategy
- Standardize and improve operational processes and procedures in coordination with the McLean-based team.
- Promote automation, documentation, and knowledge sharing to improve efficiency and reduce operational risk.
- Contribute to long-term roadmaps for network and infrastructure capabilities, including technology modernization and capacity planning.
- Analyze trends in incidents, requests, and performance metrics to drive continuous service improvements.
Basic Qualifications:- Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 8 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 5 years' experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
- 5 plus years' experience leading and mentoring teams.
- Strong experience with program management; project management, including agile methodologies; and organizational skills.
- Knowledge of server virtualization technologies including VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix.
- Basic networking, including data center and application layer networking.
- Strong knowledge of automation techniques for deployment of systems and services with tools such as Chef, Ansible, PowerShell and the Atlassian suite of tools.
- Excellent written and verbal communications skills.
- Must have an active Top Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance.
- This position has an on-site requirement of 5 days a week on-site.
Preferred Qualifications:Deep technical expertise in one or more of the following areas:
- Expertise in team building and collaboration.
- Working across other departments to ensure security controls are met and maintained.
- Experience partnering with company and government security organizations to maintain compliance of NIST SP 800-53 or similar security and privacy security IT controls including resolution of POA&Ms
- Understanding of budget planning.
- Virtualization (Citrix, VMWare)
- Storage and Backup (Commvault, Pure, Vast, NetApp)
- Collaboration (email, skype etc.)
- Automation (Chef, Ansible)
This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):Top Secret
This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):Not Applicable
Salary compensation range and midpoint:$172,800 - $216,000 - $259,200 Annual
Work Location Type:Onsite
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.
Commitment to Non-DiscriminationAll qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local or international law.
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