Senior Research Engineer

Peraton is seeking a Senior Research Engineer to help drive an established program developing a mature fielded RF spectrum planning monitoring and management system for Department of Defense customers. The development team is strong in full-stack web development; this role exists to add deep engineering and product-definition leadership on top of that foundation.

This individual owns the what and the how it should work. They translate user needs and operational context into concrete requirements workflows interface behavior data flows and algorithms. This individual should be able to specify the work precisely enough (through diagrams pseudocode and reference implementations) for the team to build it reliably. Direct development is not necessarily expected but they should be comfortable exploring or reviewing the code itself where necessary. They should be able to contribute to understand and defend architecture decisions.

The role functions as a force multiplier for program leadership absorbing the systems-engineering and product-definition load that currently bottlenecks on too few people. Domain expertise in RF and spectrum management is a strong advantage but is not required; what is required is the engineering horsepower and discipline to master an unfamiliar technical domain quickly and reason about it from first principles.

Success in this role demands genuine technical depth sound product judgment about what will most increase the products value to customers and the communication skills to align a team that spans software engineers domain experts DoD stakeholders and end users.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own feature and product definition end to end translating user needs and operational context into concrete requirements workflows GUI behavior and data flows
• Design and select algorithms; specify them precisely through flowcharts sequence diagrams pseudocode and interface contracts so the development team can implement them reliably
• Produce the systems-engineering artifacts that align the team: architecture sketches data-flow and state diagrams and interface definitions
• Review code and contribute directly where it adds the most leverage; provide pseudocode and reference implementations to unblock and guide the team
• Make and defend architecture and design-tradeoff decisions across the frontend backend data layer and algorithms. Not that this role does not require expertise across web development / software engineering best practices and frameworks but a strong candidate will come to understand these core principles from the development team to inform design decisions.
• Build and maintain a forward-looking product roadmap grounded in customer demand and an assessment of which capabilities will most increase the products value and competitiveness over the coming months
• Engage directly with customers stakeholders and program leadership to surface needs validate solutions and prioritize work
• Deliver live demonstrations technical briefings and talks at conferences field exercises and customer sites
• Contribute to user-facing documentation (e.g. user manuals training material and operator guides) along with the supporting technical documentation

Required Qualifications:

• 8 years experience with BS/BA 6 years with a MS/MA or 3 years experience with a PhD degree in Computer Science Electrical Engineering Software/Systems Engineering Mathematics or a related field
• Substantial experience designing and delivering real-world software systems including demonstrated technical leadership on non-trivial projects
• Demonstrated ability to own product and feature definition end to end ranging from user need to requirements and design to working software
• Strong systems-engineering discipline: decomposing ambiguous problems defining data flows and interfaces and producing the diagrams specifications and flowcharts that others can build from
• Algorithm design and analysis ability with the ability to select design and reason about the correctness and performance of algorithms not merely call existing libraries
• Proven ability to ramp quickly on an unfamiliar technical domain using first-principles engineering reasoning
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to present credibly to technical senior and non-technical audiences
• Willingness and ability to travel for demonstrations conferences field exercises and customer engagements
• US citizen with the ability to obtain and maintian a Secret security clearance

Desired Qualifications:

• Background in RF spectrum management electronic warfare signal processing propagation modeling software defined radios SIGINT-adjacent systems or related DoD domains
• Experience with the program stack: React FastAPI Python TypeScript/ PostgreSQL/PostGIS message brokers (e.g. NATS RabbitMQ) and Docker
• Coding fluency with ability to read/review code where applicable and contribute to a production codebase
• Hands-on coding fluency across a modern web stack (e.g. Python TypeScript/JavaScript) is a plus
• Familiarity with geospatial visualization (e.g. CesiumJS PostGIS) and real-time or streaming data
• Experience with AI/LLM integration (e.g. MCP LangGraph local/air-gapped inference) in a product context
• Experience delivering software in DoD or government settings including familiarity with RMF/ATO CMMC and GovCloud or IL4/IL5 environments
• Prior customer-facing forward-deployed solutions-engineering or technical product management experience
• Advanced degree in a relevant engineering or scientific field

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the worlds leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider we deliver trusted highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land sea space air and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day our employees do the cant be done by solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers. Visit to learn how were keeping people around the world safe and secure.