Software Requirements Engineer

ASRC Federal Data Networks Corporation (DNC) is seeking a Software Requirements Engineer for a position supporting the NOAA Office of Space Commerce, Space Operations Division, TraCSS Engineering Branch in Suitland MD.  The engineer will work with the government and various stakeholders and perform tasks related to the development, maintenance, tracking, and closure of TraCSS requirements.  TraCSS requirements include system level requirements, requirements developed by the Government Business and Product Owners, technical implementation requirements documented in one or more supporting contractor Performance Work Statements (PWS), and other Government-approved requirements sources supporting the TraCSS program.

Background Summary:

The Office of Space Commerce (OSC) is developing the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) to fulfill Space Policy Directive 3 (SPD-3).  SPD-3 instructed relevant US government agencies to begin re-assigning many aspects of space traffic management (STM) and space traffic coordination (STC) serving non-military US space operators.  OSC, under the US Department of Commerce (DOC), was identified to lead many of these efforts as part of a ‘whole of government’ approach.

TraCSS is the Office of Space Commerce’s cloud-based enterprise solution for ingesting, archiving, processing, and disseminating Space Situational Awareness (SSA) data and products.  It will provide conjunction analysis and warning services to commercial satellite owner/operators to foster economic growth and technological advancement of the US commercial space industry.  The system will store data from the Department of Defense (DoD), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), commercial SSA data providers, commercial and civil satellite Owner/Operators (O/O), and select international civil partners.  The TraCSS system will operate 24 hours per day, 7 days a week.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain the OSC TraCSS Requirements Management Plan that describes the framework for requirements development, tracking, change control, and tool implementation.  The plan shall define clear roles and responsibilities, supported by a RACI matrix, that spans the entire multi-vendor execution within the TraCSS Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) ecosystem.
• Provide supporting contractor PWS technical requirements management support through maintenance of requirements traceability and technical implementation status. This includes linking technical requirements to implementation artifacts, development work products, and higher-level program requirements. These activities are limited to technical requirements management and do not include contract administration, evaluation of contractor performance, or determination of contractual compliance.
• Ensure requirements are incorporated throughout the Agile software development lifecycle by maintaining requirements traceability and supporting requirements implementation and verification.
• Develop TraCSS requirements through Program Increment (PI) planning, mapping artifacts to requirements for verification and traceability.
• Deploy and maintain a government-approved database to manage TraCSS requirements across multiple development teams.  Provide recommendations for improvement for the requirements management tools where needed.
• Facilitate the Solutioning Review & Approval Board as the requirement systems engineering and Agile process subject matter expert, reporting to the designated Government Project Lead (GPL) on the status of all requirements, and identifying issues related to requirements completeness and fulfillment.
• Maintain Requirements Traceability Matrix.  Mapping contractor and team artifacts to requirements for verification.  Requirements mapped to contractor deliverables and test artifacts.
• Collaborate closely with the TraCSS Systems Engineer to translate high-level stakeholder needs into technical clarity. Assist Product Owners in Epic/Story creation, technical dependency mapping, and backlog refinement.
• Assist with prioritization and resolution of system defects/bugs.

Required Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• Experience: 5-7 years of professional systems engineering experience with an emphasis on working with stakeholders to develop and manage software requirements.
• Requirements & Risk Management: Proficiency with the Atlassian Suite (Jira, Jira Service Management, Confluence) for tracking requirements, dependencies, and program risks.
• Background Processing: Must pass NOAA background screening and sign a mandatory Office of Space Commerce Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
• Citizenship: US Citizenship required.

Highly Desired Qualifications:

• Space Domain Awareness: Understanding of astrodynamics, orbital mechanics, covariance realism, conjunction assessment, and risk mitigation maneuver planning methodologies.  Knowledge space situational awareness (SSA), space traffic coordination (STC), or space traffic management (STM) related topics.
• Languages & Frameworks: Hands-on mastery of Java and Python for high-performance service development, scripting, and data processing.
• Microservices & Patterns: Expertise in designing, building, and decoupling distributed systems using modern Microservices Architecture and enterprise Software Design Patterns (e.g., Domain-Driven Design, Event-Driven Architecture, CQRS, Circuit Breaker).
• Database Design & Optimization: Deep experience in schema design, query optimization, indexing, and performance tuning across both Relational (SQL) (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB).
• Message Streaming: In-depth knowledge of Apache Kafka for high-throughput event streaming, message broker patterns, event-driven integrations, and queue optimization.
• Containerization & Orchestration: Advanced, practical understanding of Kubernetes (K8s) for container management, deployment strategies (Canary, Blue/Green), ingress controllers, and cluster scaling.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Strong hands-on proficiency with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including core services (compute, storage, networking, IAM), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or CloudFormation), and cloud security best practices.
• CI/CD & DevOps Practices: Experience building and maintaining robust CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) and monitoring solutions (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog) to ensure system reliability and observability.
• Badging: Current DoD, DOC, NOAA, or NASA authorization to work.
• Experience working in support of a U.S. government institution.

Work Environment and Physical Demands:

• Work in a typical onsite government office building full time (5-days per week) with situational telework approved as needed.
• Occasional deadlines or operational conditions may require non-standard/longer hours or additional onsite support.
• Infrequent travel required.
• Place of performance will be the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF) located on the Suitland Federal Center in Suitland MD.