Software Engineer Expert

• Location: Herndon, Virginia
• Type: Contract
• Job #3956

Title: Software Engineer Expert
Location: Herndon, VA

*Clearance: *Active TS/SCI w/ Polygraph needed to apply *

Company Overview:
Cornerstone Defense is the Employer of Choice within the Intelligence, Defense, and Space communities of the U.S. Government. Realizing early on that our most prized assets are our employees, we continually focus our attention on improving the overall work/life experience they have supporting the mission. Our Team is pushed every day to use their industry leading knowledge to provide end-to-end solutions to combat our nation's toughest and most secure problems. If you are looking for a place to not only be professionally challenged, but encouraged and supported by a company that cares, don't look any further than Cornerstone Defense.



Benefits Overview :
Cornerstone Defense offers a very comprehensive benefits package including, but not limited to: Medical, Dental and Vision Plans * Generous PTO Policy * 401(k) * HSA and FSA options * Life and Disability Insurance * Tuition Reimbursement and Training * Perks at Work Discount Program * Referral Program * Leads Generation Program * CollegeAmerica 529 * Fitness Reimbursement Program * Travel Assistance * Norton Lifelock Benefit Solutions * Life Planning Financial & Legal Services *


Required Education, Experience, & Skills:
We are actively seeking Systems Engineers to perform as a Splunk Cloud engineer with a minimum of 11 years' experience. Information Technology or Engineer Bachelor's or Master's Degrees are preferred. Specific skills should include the following:
• Experience integrating diverse data streams
• Experience with data transfer tools (Ex: NiFi, Cribl, etc)
• Establishes data standards and acts as custodian of IT and service delivery data sets and streams
• Experience in analyzing complex networks and systems
• Experience in analyzing log data from various network components and operating systems
• Knowledge of complex environments involving shared networks and multiple security enclaves
• Systems Engineer with Data Engineer background
• Ability to manage and troubleshoot data feeds
• Splunk familiarization
• Python
• Required Qualifications
• Experience: 6+ years working with Splunk or Splunk Certifications, with at least 3 years on Splunk Cloud or large Splunk Enterprise deployments.
• Technical Skills: Expert SPL, knowledge of Splunk apps (Enterprise Security, ITSI, DB Connect), forwarder architectures, indexer/search head concepts.
• Cloud & Observability: Hands on experience onboarding data from AWS, Azure, and/or GCP; familiarity and observability tooling.
• Automation: Proficiency CloudFormation and experience integrating Splunk deployments into CI/CD.
• Scripting: Strong Python and Bash skills for automation, integrations, and ingestion pipelines.
• Security Knowledge: Understanding of logging best practices, log retention requirements, secure transport, and common compliance frameworks.
• Soft Skills: Strong troubleshooting, stakeholder communication, project leadership, and mentoring capability.
Preferred Education, Experience, & Skills:
• Splunk Certified Cloud Architect, Splunk Certified Admin, or Splunk Certified Power User.
• Cloud certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP).
• Experience with observability frameworks (OpenTelemetry), metrics pipelines, and metric-to-log correlation.
• Prior experience operating at enterprise scale (multi TB ingestion/day, global deployments).
• Proficiency with Terraform, Ansible, or similar IaC tools and experience integrating Splunk deployments into CI/CD.