Senior Systems Engineer Top Secret/SCI w/Poly

Peraton is seeking a highly experienced Senior Systems Engineer to lead the design, development, and implementation of our enterprise-scale data models and ontologies. This role is critical in transforming disparate data sources into a cohesive, searchable, and semantically rich knowledge graph. You will serve as a technical authority, guiding the evolution of our "Entity-Evidence" frameworks and ensuring the reliability of our distributed data services.

Key Responsibilities:

• Ontology & Model Engineering:
• Lead the design and implementation of complex domain ontologies and logical data models to support advanced analytics and discovery.
• Develop and refine schemas for graph databases (Neo4j), ensuring optimal relationship modeling and query performance.
• Establish standards for entity resolution, taxonomy management, and metadata tagging across the enterprise.
• Oversee the ingestion of "EntitySourceDocuments" and associate evidence into unified semantic structures.

Systems Architecture & Integration:

• Design and manage high-throughput data pipelines using distributed streaming platforms like Apache Kafka.
• Implement sophisticated message-key strategies and topic compaction to ensure data integrity and system efficiency.
• Orchestrate containerized services within Kubernetes (K8s), leveraging Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and Operators for complex stateful workloads.
• Integrate diverse data assets—from relational stores to unstructured documents—into a synchronized, scalable backend architecture.

Technical Leadership & Governance:

• Provide expert-level support for model implementation, ensuring alignment between conceptual models and physical deployments.
• Mentor junior engineers on best practices in Java/Spring Boot development, API documentation (OpenAPI/Swagger), and cloud-native patterns.
• Collaborate with data scientists and stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical specifications and architectural diagrams.

Reliability & Performance:

• Conduct deep-dive troubleshooting for complex system bottlenecks, particularly within Kafka clusters and graph database clusters.
• Define and implement monitoring and observability standards using Prometheus, Grafana, and ELK.
• Ensure the long-term scalability and maintainability of the "arbitranch" and "KEA" service ecosystems.

Basic Qualifications:

• Active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph
• Twenty (20) years of Systems Engineering experience on programs of similar scope, type, and complexity, with demonstrated expertise in planning and leading Systems Engineering efforts
• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering Science, Engineering Management, or a related discipline from an accredited institution; in lieu of a degree, an additional five (5) years of relevant Systems Engineering experience may be substituted.
• Extensive experience in Data Architecture, with a focus on graph modeling and semantic technologies.
• Mastery of Java and the Spring Boot ecosystem for building enterprise-grade backend services.
• Deep technical proficiency with Apache Kafka, including cluster management, topic configuration, and performance tuning.
• Proven track record of deploying and managing production workloads on Kubernetes and cloud platforms (AWS).
• Experience with automated CI/CD workflows and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/CloudFormation).
• Strong communication skills with the ability to convey complex architectural concepts to both technical and executive audiences.

Desired Expertise:

• Expert knowledge of Neo4j (Cypher, APOC, GDS) and graph-based data science.
• Experience with Ontology Web Language (OWL) or Resource Description Framework (RDF).
• Understanding of social media sentiment analysis and its application to financial or predictive modeling.
• Familiarity with large-scale data processing using Apache Spark.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or a related quantitative field.