The Defense sector at Leidos is seeking a cleared Senior Wide Area Network (WAN) Engineer to engineer, operate, and sustain long-haul transport and routing infrastructure across Department of Defense (DoD/DoW) networks. This individual serves as a Subject Matter Expert on routing for the enterprise WAN — assisting the Network Architect with Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) design, peering, and policy across NIPRNet, SIPRNet, and DISN service delivery points — and is accountable for the availability, performance, and STIG compliance of circuits supporting operational mission traffic worldwide.
Roles and Responsibilities:
- Design, implement, and maintain BGP routing architecture across the enterprise WAN, including peering relationships, autonomous system boundaries, and route policy enforcement.
- Serve as the escalation authority for complex WAN faults — route flapping, asymmetric paths, MTU and fragmentation issues, black-holed prefixes, and provider circuit degradation.
- Engineer and execute circuit installations, migrations, bandwidth upgrades, and site cutovers with documented rollback plans and minimal mission impact.
- Develop and maintain routing policy standards, IP address and ASN allocation plans, and authoritative network documentation including logical and physical topology diagrams.
- Configure and sustain QoS, traffic engineering, and path selection to prioritize command and control, VTC, and VoIP traffic across constrained transport.
- Apply DISA STIGs to routing and transport devices, remediate IAVA findings, and support RMF assessment and authorization artifacts and POA&M closure.
- Coordinate with DISA, NOC/SOC teams, transport providers, and site network personnel to schedule and validate maintenance actions and outage restoration.
- Monitor WAN health and capacity using SolarWinds, NetFlow, and SNMP-based tooling; produce trend analysis and capacity recommendations for government leadership.
- Manage Type 1 encryptor configuration and key management coordination in support of secure enclave connectivity.
- Mentor junior network administrators, review proposed configuration changes, and represent WAN engineering positions at CCB and technical review boards.
Required Qualifications:
- Clearance: US Citizen with at least a Top Secret clearance and the ability to obtain a SCI prior to your start date.
- Education: Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of experience or a Master’s degree with 6+ years of experience. Additional experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
- Experience: 8+ years of hands-on enterprise WAN engineering and operations experience, with demonstrated ownership of multi-site routed transport in a DoD environment.
- Certifications: DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level II certification (Security+ CE or equivalent) plus an active CCNP Enterprise, JNCIP-SP, or equivalent routing certification.
- BGP Expertise:
- Expert-level configuration and troubleshooting of eBGP and iBGP, including route reflectors, confederations, and full-mesh peering designs.
- Proven ability to author and tune BGP routing policy using route maps, prefix lists, AS-path filters, communities, local preference, MED, and AS-path prepending.
- Experience establishing and sustaining BGP peering with DISA/DISN service delivery nodes and commercial transport providers.
- Working knowledge of BGP convergence tuning, dampening, BFD, and route leak/hijack mitigation.
- Routing & Transport: Strong proficiency with OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS L2/L3 VPNs, VRFs, QoS policy for voice and mission traffic, and IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack operations.
- Platforms: Hands-on administration of Cisco (IOS-XE/IOS-XR/NX-OS) and Juniper (Junos) routing platforms in an operational production network.
- Encryption & Circuits: Experience with Type 1 inline network encryptors (TACLANE/KG-175, HAIPE) and with DISA circuit lifecycle actions (TSR/TSO, DISA Direct/SNAP).
- Compliance: Working knowledge of DISA STIGs, RMF, IAVA remediation, and change control under DoD configuration management processes.
- Troubleshooting: Demonstrated packet-level analysis skill using Wireshark/tcpdump, SPAN/TAP captures, and NetFlow to isolate faults across provider and government segments.
- Availability: Ability to support on-call rotation, scheduled maintenance windows, and after-hours cutovers; occasional CONUS/OCONUS travel may be required.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Advanced Certification: CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure or Service Provider, JNCIE-SP, or DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level III (CASP+ or CISSP).
- Segment Routing & MPLS-TE: Experience with segment routing, MPLS traffic engineering, or EVPN in a large-scale transport core.
- SD-WAN: Hands-on experience with Cisco SD-WAN or Juniper SDWAN or comparable overlay transport in a DoD/DoW deployment.
- Automation: Proficiency with Python, Ansible, for configuration deployment, compliance auditing, and network state validation.
- DoD Enterprise Services: Familiarity with JRSS, DODIN operations, and DoD boundary/CDS architectures.
- Optical Transport: Working knowledge of DWDM, SONET/SDH, and carrier Ethernet handoffs supporting long-haul circuits.
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If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.
Original Posting:September 10, 2026For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.
The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.
Skills Required
- U.S. citizenship
- Active Top Secret security clearance
- Ability to obtain SCI before start date
- Bachelor's degree with 8+ years of experience, or master's degree with 6+ years; additional experience may substitute for degree
- 8+ years of enterprise WAN engineering and operations experience in a DoD environment
- DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level II certification, such as Security+ CE or equivalent
- Active CCNP Enterprise, JNCIP-SP, or equivalent routing certification
- Expert-level eBGP and iBGP configuration and troubleshooting
- BGP routing policy development using route maps, prefix lists, AS-path filters, communities, local preference, MED, and AS-path prepending
- BGP peering experience with DISA/DISN nodes and commercial transport providers
- Knowledge of BGP convergence tuning, dampening, BFD, and route leak or hijack mitigation
- Strong proficiency with OSPF, EIGRP, MPLS L2/L3 VPNs, VRFs, QoS, and IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack operations
- Production administration of Cisco IOS-XE, IOS-XR, NX-OS, and Juniper Junos routing platforms
- Experience with Type 1 network encryptors, including TACLANE/KG-175 and HAIPE
- Experience with DISA circuit lifecycle actions, including TSR/TSO and DISA Direct/SNAP
- Knowledge of DISA STIGs, RMF, IAVA remediation, and DoD configuration management
- Packet-level troubleshooting using Wireshark, tcpdump, SPAN/TAP captures, and NetFlow
- Ability to support on-call rotations, maintenance windows, and after-hours cutovers
- CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure or Service Provider
- JNCIE-SP certification
- DoD 8570/8140 IAT Level III certification, CASP+, or CISSP
- Experience with segment routing, MPLS traffic engineering, or EVPN
- Hands-on Cisco SD-WAN, Juniper SD-WAN, or comparable overlay transport experience
- Python and Ansible proficiency for network automation
- Familiarity with JRSS, DODIN operations, and DoD boundary/CDS architectures
- Knowledge of DWDM, SONET/SDH, and carrier Ethernet handoffs
Leidos Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Leidos and has not been reviewed or approved by Leidos.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as comprehensive, with multiple plan options, low office-visit copays in some plans, and access to mental health and wellness support tools. The availability of HSA/FSA options and employer contributions is positioned as a meaningful part of the total package.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are framed as a strong component of total rewards, highlighted by a 401(k) match and immediate vesting in the standard package. The Employee Stock Purchase Plan is also presented as an additional long-term wealth-building feature.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing and lifestyle supports extend beyond core insurance, including wellness programs, fitness-related stipends, and assistance resources. Work flexibility and related perks are also included as part of the broader rewards experience.
Leidos Insights
What We Do
We Are Leidos For 50 years we have been tackling some of the biggest problems that face our nation and our world. OUR MISSION Through our culture of innovation and history of performance, we develop deep customer trust built on integrity and create enduring solutions that improve our world. Leidos is a science and technology solutions leader working to address some of the world’s toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and healthcare markets. The company’s 43,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Va., Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $11.09 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2020. Leidos was cited for the meaningful work employees perform that is challenging, impactful, and aligned with our customers’ missions as reasons professionals want to work and stay at our company. Leidos has also been named to lists including Forbes’ Best Employers for Diversity, Forbes’ America’s Best Employers for Women, Military Times Best for Vets Employers, and Ethisphere Institute’s World's Most Ethical Companies®. Employees enjoy career enrichment opportunities available through mobility and development and experience rewarding relationships with supportive supervisors and talented colleagues and customers. Employees appreciate our flexible work environment, allowing for and encouraging a true work-life balance. Our professionals are also excited about our Employee Resource Groups, like the newly launched Collaborative Outreach with Remote and Embedded Employees (CORE), which strives to create an environment where every employee, regardless of location, feels fully engaged as a valued employee of Leidos. Your most important work is ahead.
