Lead Systems Engineer - AWS Cloud at System One
Reston, VA
$95/hrfrom the description
Jul 11, 2026
Reston, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level contract role focused on designing, building, and maintaining cloud-based systems on AWS, with an emphasis on infrastructure as code, containerization, and CI/CD pipelines. The position involves leading systems engineering efforts — from requirements definition and architecture assessment through risk management and incident troubleshooting — while also mentoring other engineers. It suits an experienced AWS practitioner with a background in federal or enterprise IT environments.
Senior level · 10+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Contract
“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
Roughly 260 people in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 95–400
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $158,337 (middle half $126,441–$180,105). 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 role is titled 'Lead Systems Engineer' — 'Lead' here maps to Senior on the seniority ladder (workstream ownership, mentoring), not Staff, as the JD describes no cross-team architectural authority beyond this engagement.
The degree requirement states a Bachelor's in IT/CS or a related field, but explicitly accepts an additional 4 years of experience in lieu of a degree — classified as no hard degree gate.
The posting mentions Federal health care program eligibility disclosure but does not gate on a US security clearance.
AWS Certification (minimum one, e.g. Solutions Architect or DevOps Engineer) is listed as a hard requirement in the Requirements section.
Terraform is listed as the primary IaC tool with CloudFormation and CDK named as alternatives in the same 'such as' clause — all three satisfy the same IaC requirement.
The role is hybrid (Reston, VA) on a W-2 contract at $95/hr; not fully remote.
SOC confidence is Medium: the role blends systems engineering/architecture (15-1211) with hands-on cloud infrastructure coding (15-1252); the strong IaC, Python, and CI/CD requirements tip it toward Software Developers.
Posting is for a contract engagement — the market benchmarks below price full-time roles, so read the comp comparison with that in mind.
Read the full posting
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