Senior Validation Engineer Jobs in Reston, VA (NOW HIRING)

Leidos is seeking Senior DevSecOps Platform Engineers to join the Air Traffic Business Area within the Homeland Sector, supporting the development of next-generation flight service and air traffic systems. This work aligns with the FAA's broader initiative to modernize legacy flight service capabilities, replacing aging infrastructure with scalable, cloud-based platforms designed to improve safety and operational efficiency-particularly in remote and high-dependency aviation environments. These efforts focus on delivering mission-critical, future-ready solutions that provide safety-critical flight services to the pilot community.

Please note, this exciting position is currently unfunded and is in anticipation of future work.

In this position, you will serve as a Senior DevSecOps Platform Engineer, providing technical leadership for the design, implementation, and continuous evolution of secure software delivery platforms supporting multiple Agile development teams. You will lead the development of enterprise CI/CD capabilities, establish engineering standards, and improve software delivery through automation, developer enablement, and secure software engineering practices.

This role is primarily responsible for the software delivery platform, GitLab administration, CI/CD architecture, deployment automation, and developer enablement. Cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes platform administration, and cloud operations are performed in close partnership with the Cloud Systems Owner team. Working closely with software engineers, Cloud Systems Owners, systems engineers, cybersecurity personnel, Product Owners, solution architects, and technical leadership, you will help ensure software is developed, validated, and deployed rapidly while meeting the operational, security, and compliance requirements of mission-critical FAA applications.

This position supports government programs and requires the ability to obtain and maintain a favorable Public Trust investigation.

• Lead the engineering, administration, and continuous improvement of the GitLab platform, including projects, groups, runners, repositories, permissions, scalability, and operational health.
• Establish enterprise CI/CD standards through reusable GitLab pipeline templates, shared libraries, automation frameworks, and deployment workflows that improve consistency, maintainability, and engineering productivity across Agile development teams.
• Lead the implementation and continuous improvement of automated application security, software supply chain security, and compliance validation throughout the CI/CD lifecycle, including SAST, software composition analysis (SCA), container image scanning, secrets detection, and Infrastructure-as-Code scanning.
• Develop and maintain standardized deployment patterns for Kubernetes applications utilizing GitOps methodologies, Helm, progressive deployment techniques, and automated deployment validation.
• Administer GitLab Container Registry, package repositories, artifact repositories, and software dependency management platforms supporting secure software delivery.
• Collaborate with Cloud Systems Owners to ensure cloud platforms effectively support automated software deployment, operational scalability, application resiliency, and platform reliability.
• Partner with software development teams to improve build performance, deployment reliability, release quality, and developer productivity through automation and self-service engineering capabilities.
• Partner with cybersecurity teams to align DevSecOps capabilities with organizational security policies, Federal guidance, and continuous monitoring requirements.
• Lead troubleshooting and root cause analysis for complex build failures, deployment issues, pipeline performance problems, dependency management challenges, and software delivery failures.
• Review and provide technical guidance on pipeline designs, deployment strategies, automation solutions, and engineering practices developed by other DevSecOps Platform Engineers to promote consistency, maintainability, and adherence to established standards.
• Define and monitor software delivery performance metrics, including pipeline reliability, deployment success rates, build performance, and deployment frequency, identifying opportunities to improve engineering productivity and operational excellence.
• Develop and maintain DevSecOps engineering standards, pipeline documentation, release management processes, operational guidance, and platform governance documentation.
• Mentor DevSecOps Platform Engineers and provide technical leadership on software delivery automation, secure development practices, and GitLab platform administration.
• Evaluate emerging DevSecOps technologies, AI-assisted software engineering capabilities, software delivery methodologies, and automation techniques, recommending improvements that increase engineering productivity, security, and operational efficiency.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies while providing technical leadership supporting multiple software development teams.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field with 8-12 years of relevant experience, or Master's degree with 6-10 years of experience.
• Extensive experience designing, implementing, and administering enterprise CI/CD platforms supporting large-scale software development.
• Advanced experience developing and administering GitLab CI/CD pipelines, including GitLab Runners, reusable pipeline templates, variables, artifacts, deployment workflows, and pipeline optimization.
• Extensive experience administering GitLab repositories, merge requests, branching strategies, permissions, source code management, and platform governance.
• Extensive experience developing Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or similar technologies.
• Advanced experience deploying containerized applications (Docker, Kubernetes) using Helm, GitOps methodologies, or comparable deployment tools.
• Strong experience developing automation using Bash, Python, or similar scripting languages.
• Experience administering Linux environments supporting CI/CD platforms and software development workflows.
• Experience supporting AWS cloud services and cloud-native application deployments.
• Extensive knowledge of software supply chain security, secrets management, dependency management, secure software development practices, and automated security testing.
• Experience integrating automated testing, quality gates, compliance validation, and security scanning into enterprise CI/CD pipelines.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives, mentor engineers, establish engineering standards, and improve software delivery practices.
• Strong troubleshooting, communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to obtain an SF-85 Public Trust suitability determination.
• US Citizenship.

• Experience supporting FAA, DoD, or other Federal software development programs.
• Experience leading DevSecOps initiatives supporting large Agile or SAFe software development organizations.
• Experience implementing enterprise GitOps deployment methodologies using GitLab and Kubernetes.
• Experience with GitLab Ultimate Security, SonarQube, Checkmarx, Veracode, Snyk, Trivy, or similar security analysis platforms.
• Experience administering GitLab Container Registry, Nexus Repository Manager, Artifactory, or comparable artifact management platforms.
• Experience supporting cloud-native application development using Kubernetes and AWS.
• Experience implementing automated testing, deployment approvals, quality gates, compliance validation, and release governance within CI/CD pipelines.
• AWS, GitLab, Kubernetes, Terraform, or comparable industry certifications.

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: August 6, 2026

For 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.

Pay Range $107,900.00 - $195,050.00

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.

Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $16.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2025. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.