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Booz Allen

Builds AI and cyber systems for the US government

Defense Solutions Architect

Full-TimeDeadline 12/1/26
$99k - $225k/yr
Senior, Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, MBA
McLean, VA, USA
In Person
Solution EngineeringPre-Sales Solution Engineering
No H1B Sponsorship
US Top Secret Clearance Required

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 8 years of experience in solution architecture or systems engineering.
  • Experience developing technical solutions and architectures in one or more of the following areas: Undersea Autonomy, Model-Based Systems Engineering, DevSecOps, Software Engineering, Digital Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Networks, or Enterprise IT.
  • Experience supporting defense capture, proposals, or technical solutioning in a government or government-contracting environment.
  • Experience authoring technical volumes, solution narratives, or written proposal artifacts.
  • Experience supporting Department of Defense or Intelligence Community clients, including Army, Navy, or Marine Corps missions.
  • Knowledge of the defense industry and the U.S. Government acquisition process.
  • Ability to collaborate across capture, pricing, partner, and account leadership to deliver integrated solutions under deadline.
  • Ability to obtain a Secret clearance.
  • A bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a STEM field, or at least 5 years of military experience in a technical engineering field in lieu of a degree.
Responsibilities
  • Lead technical solution development and architecture visioning during capture, shaping, and pre-request-for-proposal phases.
  • Translate customer mission needs into actionable, technically sound solution concepts and win themes across digital, cyber, autonomy, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and infrastructure domains.
  • Produce and refine solution narratives, technical volumes, architecture diagrams, compliance matrices, and supporting artifacts for bids.
  • Evaluate competitor approaches, teaming strategies, and price-to-win considerations to ensure solutions are differentiated and winnable.
  • Surge across pursuits and flex to the highest-priority opportunities as capture demands shift.
  • Partner with Capture Leads, Pricing, and industry and technology partners to shape end-to-end solutions, basis-of-estimate inputs, and bills of materials.
  • Contribute to proposal development, including technical volumes, solution narratives, color-team reviews, and oral presentation preparation.
  • Apply knowledge of defense acquisition pathways, including the Adaptive Acquisition Framework, Commercial Solutions Openings, Middle-Tier Acquisition, Other Transaction Authorities, and SBIR/STTR, to align solutions to the appropriate contracting approach.
  • Stay current on defense technology trends and the venture and partner ecosystem, focus on injecting commercial off-the-shelf capabilities into government proposals, and build reusable solution assets that scale across pursuits and accounts.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience as a solution architect or technical lead on competitive defense captures.
  • Experience architecting solutions across more than one of the listed focus areas.
  • Knowledge of rapid prototyping and high-speed acquisition environments.
  • Knowledge of multi-domain operations and joint warfighting concepts.
  • Secret clearance.
  • A master's degree in Business Administration or a technical field.
  • AWS or Azure Solutions Architect certification and CISSP, Security+, or Department of Defense 8570 IAT or IAM certification.

About the company

Booz Allen builds and runs technology for the U.S. government, mostly for the military and intelligence agencies, and its engineers work alongside consultants who know each agency's mission. In 1958, it helped the U.S. Navy create PERT, a project-scheduling method first used on the Polaris submarine missile program and later adopted across government and industry. Its teams design cyber defenses, AI and data tools, and battlefield communications, and it sells its own products, such as Vellox, a suite of AI tools that spot and fight off hackers. Agencies pay mainly through multi-year contracts that reimburse costs, bill hours, or set a fixed price. Booz Allen was founded in 1914 and is based in McLean, Virginia.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

New York City, New York

Founded

1914

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Product work is growing: Booz Allen bought Ultra's battlefield encryption and computing unit for $720 million in August 2026.
  • Hiring continues despite cuts: Booz Allen listed 2,282 open roles in October 2026, 1,097 of them in technology.
  • Work is lined up for years: backlog, including contract options, hit $39.5 billion in June 2026, about 3.5 years' revenue.

What critics are saying

  • Job security has slipped: staff fell from 33,400 to 30,900 in the year to June 2026 as civil work shrank.
  • Stock grants lost value: shares fell 29% in the year to October 2026 while defense IT rival CACI rose 14%.
  • Shutdowns halt paid work: the federal shutdown that began October 2025 cost Booz Allen about $50 million in unperformed work.

What makes Booz Allen unique

  • Most coworkers are cleared for secrets: about 77% of Booz Allen's 31,500 employees held security clearances in March 2026.
  • AI is its specialty: Booz Allen calls itself the federal government's largest AI provider, with about 400 active AI projects.
  • It bankrolls defense tech startups: Booz Allen tripled its venture fund to $300 million in July 2025, backing 17 companies.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

401(k) Retirement Plan

Paid Vacation

Professional Development Budget

Remote Work Options

Flexible Work Hours

Company News

PR Newswire
Oct 9th, 2026
PDW integrates Booz Allen mission autonomy software on AM drones with secure fleet updates

Performance Drone Works announced it is integrating Booz Allen's mission autonomy software, powered by Shield AI's Hivemind, onto its AM drones. The software enables autonomy-assisted missions whilst operators retain decision-making authority. PDW is also deploying Booz Allen's secure over-the-air fleet update system across its aircraft portfolio. The combined product entered testing on 30 September and is planned for general availability in Q1 2027. PDW aims to extend the autonomy software to its C100 aircraft later in 2027. The integration supports PDW's strategy to rapidly field and adapt systems. The company's Huntsville facility has annual production capacity of 100,000 drones. Booz Allen's update system is designed to reduce approved update cycles from weeks to hours, even in contested environments.

Tectonic
Oct 5th, 2026
Aventra raises $17.5M for high-altitude balloon-dropped glide bombs

Virginia-based startup Aventra has raised $17.5 million in new funding, with Konvoy Ventures leading the round. Seed round backer Lavrock Ventures participated alongside new investors Booz Allen Ventures, Sands Capital, Langford Industries, and Western Alliance Bank. The company manufactures Piranha, a high-altitude balloon-dropped glide bomb that converts unguided munitions into precision-guided weapons. Since emerging from stealth with a $3.5 million seed round last October, Aventra has delivered over 400 units to US and NATO customers and doubled its production revenue. The system launches munitions from 60,000 feet and can glide approximately 100 miles, with recent demonstrations achieving accuracy within three metres of targets. Aventra plans to use the funding to scale production from 35 units monthly to 500 through a new Virginia facility called Factory Zero.

Yahoo Finance
Sep 14th, 2026
Palantir, Nvidia, Booz Allen restrict Anthropic and OpenAI models over data retention concerns

Palantir Technologies, Nvidia, and Booz Allen Hamilton are restricting use of AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI over data protection concerns, Reuters reported. The companies worry model providers could retain or extract value from sensitive corporate information. Palantir has pressed Anthropic for zero data retention guarantees. Nvidia limits Anthropic's models to less sensitive tasks, favouring its own Nemotron models for proprietary work. Booz Allen has banned staff from using Anthropic's commercial model on cybersecurity projects involving proprietary data. The pushback intensified after Anthropic introduced a 30-day data retention policy in June for its Claude 3.5 model, citing security monitoring needs. Anthropic responded by launching Enterprise Frontier Safeguards, allowing customers to store activity data in their own cloud infrastructure under their encryption keys.

Business Wire
Sep 12th, 2026
Credo AI Announces $21 Million in New Capital, Grows Leadership Team to Match the Rapid Pace of AI Innovation, Emerges as the Standard of Responsible AI Governance

Credo AI, a global leader in AI governance software, today announced that it has raised $21 million in new capital from CrimsoNox Capital, Mozilla Ventures, ...

TechCrunch
Sep 2nd, 2026
HiddenLayer nabs $100M as enterprises rush to secure their AI deployments | TechCrunch

Security companies are scrambling to build products that can monitor not just agents but also the tools and add-ons they use.