Network Engineer Principal at BAE Systems
Broomfield, CO
$118,095–$200,762from the description
Jul 14, 2026
Broomfield, CO
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level network engineering role focused on designing, deploying, and maintaining high-availability infrastructure within classified environments. Day-to-day work spans hardware and virtual networking, automation and infrastructure-as-code, security policy enforcement, configuration management, and troubleshooting. The role suits an experienced network engineer holding an active TS/SCI clearance who is comfortable working across data centers, cloud, and container-based platforms alongside software development teams.
Senior level · 6+ years · National · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
Advertised as Principal, but the requirements read as Senior.
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $101,310 (middle half $79,725–$129,425). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The job title is 'Network Engineer Principal' but the scope and 6+ years experience requirement align with a Senior-level role; 'Principal' here appears to be a BAE Systems internal grade rather than an org-wide technical authority role.
The clearance requirement is explicitly stated as 'a current, active TS/SCI security clearance is required with the ability to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI Polygraph.'
The Required Skills section lists Cisco IOS, Nexus OS, Palo Alto GUI, Juniper OS, and F5 Load-balancers as 'experience in one or more of the following areas' — meaning at least one is a hard gate but not all are individually required. Cisco IOS is listed as the primary with the others as alternatives; each is also broken out separately as preferred to reflect that any individual one beyond the minimum is a bonus.
IaC (infrastructure as code) is explicitly called out in the job description as a required engineering responsibility.
SolarWinds, Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller, Cisco ISE, DISA STIGs, and CCNA certification all appear under 'Preferred Education, Experience, & Skills' and are not hard gates.
A Bachelor's degree is listed as the baseline but the JD explicitly states 'related technical experience may be considered in lieu of education,' so the degree requirement is set to None.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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