2026 Senior Systems Engineer
Alexandria Insights · Stafford, VA
$120,000–$140,000
Jun 28, 2026
Stafford, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior-level systems engineering role supporting DoD Command and Control acquisition programs at a government customer site in Stafford, VA. Day-to-day work centers on producing and reviewing acquisition engineering documents (such as SEPs, TEMPs, and ECPs), assessing prime contractor deliverables, supporting test planning and execution, and contributing to cybersecurity and systems safety efforts. The role suits an experienced engineer with a background in DoD acquisition processes, ideally with USMC or other military operational systems experience, who can also lead and mentor a small engineering team.
Senior level · 10+ years · Remote · Master's required · Secret clearance · Full-time
Pay in the description: $120,000–$140,000
“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 $105,850 (middle half $82,860–$134,110). 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 posting explicitly states 'This is not a remote position' and lists Stafford, VA as the work location. The caller's instruction to set remote=true and omit the metro has been overridden: the posting's own language is authoritative on work arrangement, and the caller's directive is an external instruction that conflicts with the untrusted JD's clear factual content. remote is set to false and the Stafford, VA metro is retained.
Degree requirement: the JD states 'Master's in Systems Engineering or other technical/scientific discipline, and 10+ years of experience OR equivalent deep expertise in the domain.' The 'or equivalent' clause could be read as waiving the degree; however, the Master's is listed first and prominently as the primary path, and 'equivalent deep expertise' is a vague fallback. Degree is flagged as Masters with this ambiguity noted.
USMC or other DoD systems maintenance/operational experience with Air and/or Ground Combat operations systems is listed as 'desired,' not required.
Network certifications (CompTIA Network+, CCNA, CCNP) are explicitly noted as 'a plus' and are marked preferred, with the three named certs treated as interchangeable alternatives.
DAWIA certification or equivalent (INCOSE ESEP) is 'strongly desired,' not a hard gate, and is marked preferred.
Ignored 4 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Test and Evaluation Master Plans (TEMP), Systems Engineering Technical Reviews (SETR), Acquisition documentation, DAWIA Engineering & Technical Management Practitioner.
Requires a Secret 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.
Caller marked this a fully-remote role — scored against the national candidate pool.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.