Systems Engineering, SME

Peraton’s Cyber Mission supports the United States Air Force by delivering mission-critical Cyber professionals who defend our nation’s security. Our team of experts provides innovative engineering, logistics, sustainment, and customer support to ensure the functionality of network infrastructure, while addressing the most complex cyber operations and national defense challenges. 

Peraton is seeking a System Engineering SME to support our mission to defend and protect our national security.  

• Using a holistic approach, designs, develops, evaluates, and modifies end-to-end systems and systems-oriented products through their entire life cycle.
• Generates quantifiable requirements based on customer description, system planning and design, and acquisition logistics. Ensures requirements comply with client requirements and government standards through formal verification methods.
• Translates high level product development strategies into system requirement specifications and works with other engineering disciplines to develop lower-level detailed implementation requirements.
• Establishes and coordinates development of standards, practices, and procedures as related to the overall product development. Designs interfaces and brings system elements together, so they work as a whole.
• Assesses performance using evaluation criteria and technical performance measures. Customer liaison and support for business development activities and to understand and shape requirements. Participates in system conceptual design and documentation of the design concepts.
• Translates high level product development strategies into system requirement specifications and works with multi-discipline engineering teams to develop lower-level detailed requirements.
• Participates in design reviews of components (hardware and software) to ensure applicability to the current system and traceability of requirements through compliance verification and validation. Generates system level requirements verification procedures and customer acceptance test procedures.
• Reviews test plans/procedures and ensures they meet the objectives of the contractual requirements and participates in the testing process to validate requirements.

The successful candidate will serve as a technical advisor and operational SME, bridging advanced AI capabilities with real-world cyber operations to accelerate decision cycles, enhance threat detection, and support offensive cyber planning and execution.

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of 16 years with BS/BA in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or related field; Minimum of 14 years with MS/MA; Minimum of 10 years with Ph.D.

• Understanding of offensive cyber operations concepts, tools, and methodologies
• Experience with defensive cyber operations including threat hunting, SIEM, and incident response
• Familiarity with cyber weapon systems and network exploitation techniques
• Understanding of DoD cyber operations authorities and legal frameworks
• Expert-level knowledge of TCP/IP, network protocols, and enterprise architectures
• Experience with network security tools (firewalls, IDS/IPS, packet capture, traffic analysis
• Knowledge of zero trust architecture principles and implementation
• Experience with network vulnerability assessment and penetration testing
• Hands-on experience with agentic AI systems and multi-agent orchestration
• Experience deploying AI tools in classified or operational environments
• One or more certifications: CISSP, CEH, GPEN, GCIH, OSCP, DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level II or IAM Level III compliance
• DoD TS SCI clearance with the ability to obtain poly 
• U.S Citizenship required

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior military experience with 16th Air Force, Cyber Command, or NSA
• Experience with Air Force cyber weapon systems and mission planning tools
• Familiarity with JADC2 concepts and multi-domain operations
• Experience with DevSecOps and CI/CD pipelines in classified environments
• Proficiency in Python, scripting, and automation for cyber operations
• DoD TS SCI clearance with poly