Systems Engineer III - Data Scientist

Intelligent Waves LLC is seeking a Systems Engineer Level III focused on data science to support a cybersecurity contract in Linthicum Heights, MD (onsite). The role blends systems engineering leadership with NLP/ML and data extraction capabilities to help teams deliver requirements-driven architectures, verification, and security-aligned solutions.

In this position, you will manage requirements and system architectures across the lifecycle, while also contributing to information-centric engineering tasks such as extracting and loading data from unstructured and semi-structured sources. The contract environment requires an active clearance and hands-on proficiency with Python or R, alongside relevant data science toolsets.

What you’ll do

• Manage system and derived requirements across the lifecycle, ensuring alignment with defined architectures, stakeholder needs, functional requirements, and allocated hardware, software, facility, and personnel components.
• Derive and manage lower-level requirements from higher-level requirements, keeping them complete, correct, unique, unambiguous, realizable, verifiable, traceable, and aligned with system effectiveness.
• Establish and manage formal requirements-change processes, including impact evaluation, stakeholder approval, traceability maintenance, ambiguity elimination, and tracking open actions to resolution.
• Develop system architectures, physical architectures, system concepts, design solutions, and alternatives that meet requirements while factoring in lifecycle cost, reuse, complexity, risk, and growth.
• Develop and implement Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions and DoDAF-compliant operational and technical standards, including system and services views.
• Create operational scenarios, threads, and concepts showing system, user, and environment interactions across operational, support, maintenance, and disposal needs.
• Develop, review, and approve systems engineering documentation such as Systems Engineering Plans, Initial Capabilities Documents, Requirements Specifications, Interface Control Documents, and JCIDS documentation.
• Review program and contract deliverables including Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), work packages, and Integrated Master Plans (IMP), and provide technical input.
• Provide technical direction covering development, engineering, integration, interfacing, and testing of complex hardware/software systems, including requirements elicitation, functional allocation, systems requirements reviews, concepts of operation, interface standards, system architectures, and end-to-end flow analysis.
• Define, document, and manage hardware and software interfaces across the system lifecycle, including origination, destination, stimulus, data characteristics, and applicable electrical and mechanical characteristics.
• Establish integration processes across multiple teams, coordinate interface activities, and refine integration strategies using prior performance and lessons learned.
• Develop verification methods, processes, evaluation criteria, and written plans to verify systems, subsystems, and work products against established requirements, including early verification planning for new or unproven designs.
• Support system testing, including planning and test analysis for DoD and other Government Certification and Accreditation (C&A) processes.
• Manage system configuration and technical baselines throughout development, deployment, operations, and maintenance, including participation in the Configuration Control Board (CCB) and coordination tied to CCB outcomes, design reviews, program reviews, and test reviews.
• Assess and manage program risks by determining probability and consequences, developing alternative courses of action and fallback positions, monitoring risks at key milestones, and using Earned Value Management (EVM) data where applicable.
• Conduct or approve system trade analyses and quantitative assessments for non-functional areas including reliability, maintainability, vulnerability, survivability, and producibility.
• Use validated models, simulations, and prototyping to reduce development risk and cost, including allocation of real-time process and error budgets and development of timeline analysis diagrams.
• Participate in Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) and Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) efforts to evaluate capabilities and recommend solutions considering operational factors, assumptions, technology limits, environmental impacts, and lifecycle costs.
• Develop Information Assurance requirements spanning confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiation, availability, identification, authentication, access control, accountability, cryptography, hashing, key management, and related security mechanisms.
• Maintain knowledge of applicable agency, national, and international standards and apply them to support consistency and interoperability across system hardware and software.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering Science, Engineering Management, or a related field.
• Five (5) additional years of relevant experience may be substituted for the degree.
• Twenty (20) years of systems engineering experience with a bachelor’s degree, or twenty-five (25) years without a degree.
• Experience with large data systems, including Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML).
• Experience extracting and loading data from unstructured and semi-structured sources, including PDFs, CONOPS, and DoDAF.
• Experience with Python and/or R.
• Active TS/SCI with polygraph conducted within the past 10 years.

Technologies

• Python, R
• TensorFlow, PyTorch
• Apache Tika, PDFMiner
• Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML)
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision
• Paid PTO
• Life and disability insurance
• Vesting starting from DAY 1
• Technical training
• Tuition bonuses

Location: Linthicum Heights, MD (onsite)

Travel: None

Salary range: $165,000 - $183,000 per yearly

Desired qualifications

• Experience with TensorFlow and/or PyTorch.
• Experience with Apache Tika and/or PDFMiner.

Clearance requirement: Active TS/SCI with polygraph conducted within the past 10 years.

Clearance statement: Applicants selected for this position will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information. Only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance. For this position, Intelligent Waves will consider only applicants with current security clearances or those eligible to obtain one.