AIOps Engineer SME

Leidos is seeking a AIOps Engineer SME to support critical mission operations within a secure environment and lead the transformation of our IT Service Management (ITSM) capabilities in Fort Belvoir or Albuquerque, New Mexico. This role is responsible for the design, deployment, and management of AIOps solutions that enhance the reliability and security of Department of War (DoW) networks and systems.

Acting as the technical lead for this initiative, you will orchestrate integrations across existing Network Engineering, ServiceNow, and SolarWinds teams. You will utilize Splunk and the Machine Learning Toolkit (MLTK) to provide descriptive and predictive analytics and establish closed-loop automated incident response, ensuring the high availability of mission-essential infrastructure.

Clearance: Active Secret at time of hire and must be able to obtain a TS/ Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI).

Primary Responsibilities:

• Cross-Functional Leadership: Lead the AIOps platform initiative by acting as the primary technical liaison to existing Network Engineering, ServiceNow, and SolarWinds administration teams to establish unified telemetry pipelines.

• ITSM Orchestration & Automation: Architect closed-loop remediation workflows by deeply integrating Splunk ITSI alerts with ServiceNow Event Management and Incident Management modules.

• Mission-Critical Observability: Architect and maintain Splunk AIOps solutions across unclassified and classified enclaves to provide real-time situational awareness.

• Infrastructure Telemetry Integration: Normalize and correlate network performance and fault data from SolarWinds with server and application logs to provide a holistic view of enterprise health.

• Advanced ML Development: Deploy custom machine learning models via Splunk MLTK to identify anomalous behavior, potential cyber threats, and infrastructure degradations.

• Secure Data Integration: Engineer secure data ingestion pipelines for telemetry data from cross-domain solutions and tactical edge devices.

• Incident Reduction: Utilize IT Service Intelligence (ITSI) to correlate multi-source events, reducing noise and prioritizing high-impact mission alerts.

• Cyber Defense Support: Collaborate with the Cyber Security Service Provider (CSSP) to integrate AIOps insights into defensive cyber operations (DCO).

• Compliance & Documentation: Ensure all observability tools comply with DoW STIGs and IL5/IL6 protocols; develop and maintain architectural documentation and compliance traceability.

• Mission Alignment: Stay current on AIOps and related capabilities relevant to DoD, federal, and intelligence mission systems.

Basic Qualifications:

• Education: BS degree and 12 – 15 years of prior relevant experience or Masters with 10 – 13 years of prior relevant experience. May possess a Doctorate in technical domain. Specific experience, education and training may be considered in lieu of degree.

• Security Clearance: Active Secret at time of hire and must be able to obtain a TS/ Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI).

• Certification: Active IAT Level II certification (e.g., Security+ CE, CySA+, GSEC, or SSCP) required.

• Citizenship: United States Citizenship is required.

• Platform Experience: 7+ years of experience with Splunk Enterprise, including architectural design, cluster management, and advanced Search Processing Language (SPL).

• AIOps & ITSM: 3+ years of experience implementing AIOps workflows, including integration with enterprise ITSM solutions (ServiceNow) for automated root cause analysis and remediation.

• Machine Learning: Proven track record of building, testing, and tuning supervised and unsupervised models within the Splunk MLTK.

• Scripting & Automation: Advanced scripting skills for developing custom search commands, API integrations, and automating remediation tasks (e.g., Python).

• Leadership: Experience leading technical working groups and directing the efforts of adjacent infrastructure and development teams.

• Operational Experience: Prior experience working within a DoW/DoD Operations Center (NOC/SOC) or supporting mission-critical systems and networks.

• Communication: Must be able to present designs, plans, and analyses of alternatives to technical leadership boards for approvals.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Enterprise Aggregation: Experience aggregating and correlating telemetry from diverse tools, specifically SolarWinds, ServiceNow, and VMware vCenter.

• Expert Certification: Splunk Enterprise Certified Architect or Splunk ITSI Certified Admin.

• Cloud Observability: Experience with Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) observability tools in secure hybrid multi-cloud environments (Azure/AWS).

• RMF/ATO Knowledge: Understanding of the Risk Management Framework (RMF) and the Authorization to Operate (ATO) process for AI/ML workloads.

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:

Pay Range:

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.