IT Systems Engineer V

About this role

This position may be filled prior to the posted deadline. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Koniag Data Solutions, LLC a Koniag Government Services company, is seeking an IT Systems Engineer V to support KDS and our government customer. The position is remote.
Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) retirement plan, paid time off, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, flexible spending accounts, commuter benefits and tuition reimbursement. Koniag Data Solutions (KDS) is a subsidiary of Koniag Government Services, an Alaska Native Corporation (ANC). KDS delivers innovative technology solutions to federal government clients, with a focus on cloud modernization, data management, and IT systems engineering. We are proud to support the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Marketing and Regulatory Programs (MRP) through the Life Sciences IT (LSIT) contract.
The IT Systems Engineer V will serve as a senior technical expert supporting APHIS MRP's IT modernization, cloud adoption, and systems engineering initiatives. This is a Key Personnel position requiring demonstrated expertise across cloud architecture, automation, business process engineering, and independent validation and verification (IV&V). The ideal candidate will provide expert-level guidance to senior technical and business leaders while leading cross-functional teams through complex technology adoption and continuous improvement efforts.
Key Responsibilities:
Systems Architecture & Cloud Engineering:

• Conduct business and systems analysis and architecture reviews to support automation and infrastructure improvement initiatives

• Determine system and application architectures aligned with business impact and financial costs

• Identify optimal cloud-first architectures aligned with the Azure Well-Architected Framework

• Research current and emerging technologies and propose changes to improve organizational capabilities

• Lead organizations through technology adoption and establish architectural best practices

• Perform cloud engineering, operations, support, and maintenance tasks to support migration of server applications from sovereign to commercial cloud environments

Automation, DevSecOps & Platform Engineering:

• Design, develop, and implement automation using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), templating, policy as code, CI/CD pipelines, feature toggles, and chaos engineering

• Implement automation tools such as Terraform and Ansible for system provisioning, configuration, and deployment

• Develop and enforce cloud policies and policy-as-code for governance and compliance

• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for continuous integration, testing, and deployment

• Drive efforts to reduce toil in system administration through DevSecOps, CloudOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and Platform Engineering

Cloud Operations & Support:

• Provide day-to-day cloud operations, monitoring, and troubleshooting to meet established SLAs

• Review compute, network, database, application, and other cloud resources for security compliance and best practices

• Implement backup, disaster recovery, and high availability strategies to meet business continuity requirements

• Ensure cloud resources are financially transparent and traceable to appropriate cost centers

Business Process & Requirements Analysis:

• Conduct discovery sessions with users, stakeholders, business leaders, and technical staff to define system problems, requirements, and objectives

• Lead stakeholder interviews and requirements analysis to clarify data availability, reporting needs, and system design challenges

• Analyze and assess business processes within custom application software and internal IT operations

• Apply Lean and Total Quality Management (TQM) principles to identify waste, bottlenecks, and non-value-added activities

• Develop and maintain process maps, data flow diagrams, and entity-relationship diagrams using manual and Computer Aided System Engineering (CASE) tools

Modernization & Reengineering:

• Apply reverse engineering and reengineering disciplines to legacy systems

• Produce modernization, migration, and strategic planning documents

• Develop controls, conversion procedures, and system implementation plans for modernization initiatives

• Communicate modernization strategies clearly to technical and business leaders

Agile Practices & Team Coaching:

• Audit current Agile practices, identify gaps, and recommend improvements to establish true Agile methodologies

• Coach teams on Agile principles, ceremonies, and roles using industry-standard frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban

• Implement metrics and feedback loops to monitor Agile maturity and effectiveness

Independent Validation & Verification (IV&V):

• Conduct IV&V of proposed, in-progress, completed, and running applications and systems

• Develop and execute test plans and review implementation against requirements

• Report deficiencies and recommend corrective actions to management

Documentation & Strategic Advisory:

• Prepare and maintain comprehensive documentation for system designs, architectures, automation scripts, and process improvements

• Produce strategic, modernization, migration, and system implementation plans

• Provide expert advice and guidance to senior leaders on overarching IT strategy and modernization efforts

• Evaluate and provide input on major phases of significant projects to ensure alignment with industry standards and organizational goals

Required Qualifications:
Education:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Systems Engineering, or a related field (additional years of relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a degree)
Minimum 3 Years of Experience In:

• Architecting, administering, maintaining, and optimizing systems and cloud-native solutions in Microsoft Azure

• Analysis, review, diagnosis, and remediation of…