Deputy Chief Engineer

Leidos delivers innovative solutions through a diverse, talented team dedicated to making the world safer, healthier, and more efficient through information technology, engineering, and science. Everything we do is built on a commitment to do the right thing for our customers, our people, and our community. We offer a robust benefits package including competitive salaries, a 401(K) retirement plan, comprehensive medical/dental/vision coverage, flexible work schedules for work/life balance, and tuition reimbursement.

Leidos is seeking a Deputy Chief Engineer to directly support the Chief Engineer across technical execution, multi-cloud operations, and DevSecOps innovation for the U.S. Air Force Cloud One Next (C1N) ACSS contract. In this role, you will assist the Chief Engineer by serving as a versatile technical leader managing enterprise tooling, cloud environments, and cybersecurity compliance frameworks. Acting as a critical link between engineering and leadership, you will collaborate with Product Owners (POs) and program management to translate customer requirements into technical direction, ensuring rapid, resilient, and secure application delivery across Department of the Air Force (DAF) enclaves.

Key Responsibilities:

• DevSecOps Technical Execution: Assist the Chief Engineer by leading the implementation, scaling, and day-to-day maturity of enterprise-wide CI/CD pipelines.

• Innovation Delivery: Evaluate, prototype, and integrate emerging DevSecOps tools, automated security scanning, and container hardening techniques to optimize the Cloud One ecosystem.

• Infrastructure Automation: Implement and maintain complex Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Configuration as Code (CaC) scripts tailored for DoD Impact Levels (IL) 2, 4, 5, and 6.

• Architecture Support: Support the Chief Engineer in reviewing cloud configurations across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI to ensure alignment with security and resiliency goals.

• Compliance Engineering: Assist in embedding automated configuration monitoring and continuous Authorization to Operate (cATO) strategies into the delivery pipeline to meet RMF and STIG requirements.

• Technical Guidance: Serve as the tactical, hands-on mentor for cross-functional DevOps and engineering teams, translating the Chief Engineer's high-level strategy into technical reality.

Required Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Systems Engineering and 12+ years of prior technical experience.

• Security Clearance: An active DoD Secret Clearance is required.

• Engineering Leadership: Minimum of 5 years of experience providing technical direction or leading software, cloud, or systems engineering teams within high-level defense programs.

• Automation & IaC: Advanced proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Configuration as Code (CaC) tooling, specifically Terraform, Ansible, and GitLab Runners.

• Pipeline Creation: Advanced knowledge of CI/CD pipeline processes, architecture, and execution with a proven ability to define and enforce organizational best practices.

• Containers & Orchestration: Comprehensive knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, and secure containerization standards.

• DoD Security & Compliance: Extensive background executing RMF processes, STIG enforcement, and managing system architectures inside secure multi-enclave environments.

• Security Clearance: Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD Secret security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Active DoD TS clearance.

• Advanced certifications: AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional, Azure DevOps Engineer Expert, or Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).

• Familiarity with DoD Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) structures and automated report feeds within Cloud One.

• Experience with Site Reliability Engineering, probability-based metrics, and integration with FinOps platforms.

C1NACSS

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:

June 18, 2026

Pay Range:

Pay Range $131,300.00 - $237,350.00

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.