At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future.

The MITRE Corporation’s Communications System Engineering (CSE) Department (L617) is seeking a Lead Network Engineer to support the Department of the Air Force Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management program. This role will focus on a combination of hands-on network prototyping and integration along with developing and guiding software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and cloud architecture solutions.

The successful candidate will provide technical leadership to government and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) stakeholders, guide architecture and implementation approaches, and help shape strategic plans and technology roadmaps for resilient network capabilities across classification domains.

Key Functions:

Seeking talented Lead Network Engineer to join our team and leverage expertise in SD-WAN, cloud networks, network security, automation, and infrastructure architecture to address complex technical challenges for a wide range of sponsor organizations.

Candidates will contribute to:

Network Design: Defining validated designs for networks with details required for implementation
Software-Defined / Virtual Networks: Configuring, deploying, testing and validating the latest technologies in software-defined and virtualized networks as well as “traditional” networking
Mission Security and Assurance: Conducting cybersecurity risk assessments of proposed and existing designs to evaluate security posture, identify threats and vulnerabilities, and recommend mitigation strategies
Network Data Analytics: Designing, implementing, and enhancing network monitoring and data collection capabilities to provide visibility into performance, availability and operational health
Tactical and Threat-Informed Networking: Developing solutions for coupling non-traditional, external threat feeds into traditional network routing parameters (i.e., bandwidth, delay, throughput) to better influence communications paths in challenging network environments

MITRE Lead Network Engineers contribute to the design, implementation, testing, validation, and modernization of secure, resilient, and scalable network environments spanning LAN/WAN, data center, and tactical operations use cases. Lead Network Engineers will be expected to build trusted advisor relationships with the government sponsors. The role requires strong collaboration, technical rigor, and the ability to translate mission needs into practical engineering solutions.

Basic Qualifications:

Requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
The candidate will engage in hands-on, mission-driven work. Responsibilities span the full solution lifecycle - from design and prototyping through testing, implementation, and monitoring - across various networking use cases and solutions.
The candidate is expected to have some experience in the following:
- Network Design: Defining designs that enable secure, scalable, resilient, and supportable solutions, including
  - target-state designs
  - operational processes
  - implementation artifacts
- Software-Defined / Virtual Networks: Some areas of software-defined and virtualized networks, as well as “traditional” networking protocols and concepts, such as the following:
  - SD-WAN
  - IPv4/IPv6
  - Interior and exterior gateway routing protocols (e.g., BGP, OSPFv2, SRv6)
  - Containerization and Deployment
  - Network segmentation
- Mission Security and Assurance: Conducting and providing:
  - Risk assessments
  - Threat and vulnerability identification
  - Mitigation strategy recommendations
- Cloud Architecture: Recent hands-on familiarity with:
  - Amazon Web Services
  - Microsoft Azure
- Network Data Analytics: Monitoring, troubleshooting and managing networks using protocols such as:
  - SNMP and / or Syslog
  - NetFlow/IPFIX
  - APIs and dashboards
- Technical Reporting and Communications: Clearly communicate technical findings, methodologies, and project outcomes through written reports, briefings, and demonstrations to both internal MITRE & external stakeholders.
- Knowledge Sharing: Actively participate in internal MITRE technical exchange events focused on emerging trends in networking and service management.

Must have an active Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI U.S. Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
This position requires a minimum of 4 days a week on-site.

Preferred Qualifications:

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Data Science related discipline, or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
Associate level networking/security certification(s) such as a Network+, Security+, CCNA or JNCIA.
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
Strong communication, presentation, and writing skills
The ability to thrive in collaborative and working relationships with people of different backgrounds.
Knowledge of, or hands-on experience in:
- SD-WAN: Hands-on experience with Juniper Secure Session Routers (SSR) and/or Secure Vector Routing (SVR).
- Network Services: Recent hands-on experience configuring core network and security services (i.e., DHCP, DNS, NTP, Zero Trust, ICAM) and multiple routing protocols (i.e., OSPF, BGP).
- Virtualization and Continuous Integration: Experience with DevOps paradigms supported by virtualization, containerization, cloud and serverless architectures
- Software Development and Automation: Experience using languages like Go, C++, Python, and JavaScript. Strong proficiency in scripting and automation using tools and frameworks like Ansible, Terraform, PowerShell, and Bash. Experience with version control systems, particularly Git, for source code management, collaboration, and CI/CD workflow integration.
- Network Data Analytics & Monitoring: Experience in collecting, processing, and analyzing large-scale network data (e.g., logs, flows, telemetry, SNMP, etc.) using tools such as Splunk, Elasticsearch, and Wireshark. Develop dashboards and visualizations to monitor network performance, capacity, and anomalies using Grafana, Kibana, and Microsoft Power BI. Implement data pipelines for real-time and batch network analytics using Apache Kafka, Apache Spark, Logstash, and Apache NiFi.
- Tactical and Threat Informed Networking: Experience integrating distributed and centralized network control algorithms and / or integrating external inputs to “traditional” network path decision logic to facilitate non-standard (i.e., not “shortest path first”) routing.
- Network Modeling, Simulation and Analysis: Experience with network simulation, emulation, and test methodologies to validate design assumptions and predict performance.

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):

Secret

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):

Top Secret/SCI

Salary compensation range and midpoint:

$147,200 - $184,000 - $220,800 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-Discrimination

All 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.

MITRE intends to maintain a website that is fully accessible to all individuals. If you are unable to search or apply for jobs and would like to request a reasonable accommodation for any part of MITRE’s employment process, please email recruitinghelp@mitre.org for general support and collegerecruiting@mitre.org for intern positions. This service is for individuals requiring reasonable accommodation requests. Please note that vendor solicitations will not receive a reply.

Benefits information may be found here.

Lead Network Engineer

About the role

Skills

Benefits

Full job details

Key Functions:

Basic Qualifications:

Preferred Qualifications: