Senior Network Engineer

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.

Department Summary Why choose between doing meaningful work and having a fulfilling life? At MITRE, you can have both. That’s because MITRE people are committed to tackling our nation’s toughest challenges - and we’re committed to the long-term well-being of our employees. MITRE is different from most technology companies. We are a not-for-profit corporation chartered to work for the public interest, with no commercial conflicts to influence what we do. The R&D centers we operate for the government create lasting impact in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, healthcare, aviation, defense, and enterprise transformation. We’re making a difference every day - working for a safer, healthier, and more secure nation and world. Our workplace reflects our values. We offer competitive benefits, exceptional professional development opportunities, and a culture of innovation that embraces diversity, inclusion, flexibility, collaboration, and career growth. If this sounds like the choice you want to make, then choose MITRE - and make a difference with us. The MITRE Corporation’s Communications System Engineering (CSE) Department (L617) is seeking a Senior 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 Senior 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 Senior 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. Senior 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:

• Typically requires 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 3 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with relevant experience who can immediately contribute at this job step; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Must have an active Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Must be eligible 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.
• 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:
• 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 and external stakeholders.
• Knowledge Sharing: Actively participate in internal MITRE technical exchange events focused on emerging trends in networking and service management.

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 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:

$118,000 - $147,500 - $177,000 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.

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