Principal Systems Engineer #628

Principal Systems Engineer #628

Target Hiring Range: $155,000-$170,000 

Department: Chief Information Officer
Posting Date Range: 2/24/2026-3/10/2026
Pay Grade Range: $130469-$181570
Work Hours: 8:30am-5:30pm
FLSA Status: Exempt
Remote Work Status: Hybrid 
Hybrid Schedule: 6 days per month on site with specific scheduled days and times subject to the operational needs of the team as well as manager approval.
All remote or hybrid work arrangements must be performed from within the continental United States, subject to Sergeant at Arms approval.

 The Senate Sergeant at Arms does not pay for relocation expenses. 

 This vacancy announcement closes at 7pm EST. Late applications will not be accepted.

JOB OVERVIEW

Job Description

The Target Hiring Range for this position is: $155,000-$170,000

The U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms is seeking a Principal Engineer to join our Enterprise Operations department. In this role, you will plan, analyze, test, install, troubleshoot, and maintain the integrity of an enterprise communications and collaboration environment.

Work involves engineering and escalation support for existing communications systems and services within the Senate campus and wide-area network. The position is also responsible for providing escalation support for the Telecom Assistance Center (TAC) for troubleshooting telephony, fax, voice, voice mail, and call statistics.

The successful applicant must be able to work independently and be an effective team member. The position requires solid analytical and technical skills, and the ability to learn new technologies quickly. The ability to manage multiple tasks and projects is a must, and effective verbal and written communications is necessary.

Key Accountabilities/Essential Job Duties
Contributes to the section's work effort in responding to incidents from other sections, including the help desk. Supports tasks which may include helping to develop standard operating procedures, assignments, and coordination of work efforts to address issues. Assists users with computer needs such as installing and configuring software/hardware on their PC; troubleshoots problems with user systems. Provisions new accounts for users. Supports the section's work effort to develop processes and procedures to streamline the resolution of issues. Provides technical support for Senate information technology or telecommunications services, systems, hardware, software, and storage solutions to the users; supports Senate offices, contract support vendors, and other technical staff in troubleshooting and managing the various Senate environments. Maintains and monitors LAN/WAN and SAN operations and solves LAN/WAN and SAN applications problems; installs integrates, customizes, enhances, troubleshoots, and tests LAN and SAN hardware and software. Assists in installing, upgrading, customizing, tuning, and maintaining databases for optimal performance and availability; assists in developing, testing, and implementing database store procedures, functions, triggers, views, and packages. Conducts acceptance and integration testing; assists vendor systems implementation by troubleshooting related system issues affecting Senate users. Analyzes, designs, develops, implements, and maintains applications to meet the needs of Senate users; assists with product evaluations and implementation. Attends internal training provided by subject matter experts to understand operational tasks, documents support needs and share the information within the assigned section. Other duties as assigned.

JOB SPECIFICATIONS

Required Education
High School Diploma/ GED.

Other Duties/ Responsibilities

• Participates in on-site and on-call rotation.
• Implement and support the enterprise Cisco UCCE environment.
• Set up, configure, and test components of the Cisco Collaboration realm, including Unity Connection, IVR, CVP, VVB, UCCE, Finesse, CUIC, 3rd party applications, etc.
• Administer, troubleshoot, maintain, and upgrade Unity Connections voicemail, ICM Contact Center, CVP, IVR, and supporting infrastructure, including CTI integration, dialers, call recorders, COBRAS, and desktop applications.
• Knowledge of and experience with Virtual Voice Browser (VVB) and CUBE, Immersive Telepresence, Video, VCS and Collaboration Endpoints.
• Manage our Cisco licenses ensuring we are always in compliance.
• Project work as part of a team, working with other technical sections in support of projects, troubleshooting, and initiatives.
• Troubleshoot, maintain, upgrade, and provide solutions to complex hardware/software problems; escalation point for production support incidents and problems.
• Produce clear and concise technical documentation and operational procedures.

Required Work Experience

• Eight to ten years of relevant work experience (GED), six to eight years (Associates), four to six years (Bachelor’s), two to four years (Master’s).
  
  

Required Special Skills/ Knowledge

• As part of our hiring process, we may conduct a skills assessment to better understand an applicant’s proficiency in key areas relevant to the role. 
• Provides long-range strategic planning activities for the Senate in the areas of information technology or telecommunications hardware, software, storage solutions, and networking systems; monitors the impact of technological developments; identifies emerging technologies.
• Provides expert-level technical support on Senate hardware, software, storage solutions, and network systems to vendors, other technical staff, and other divisions and departments; resolves critical and complex systems, applications, storage or communications performance problems.
• Serves as project manager on assigned projects; plans, assigns, directs and coordinates work efforts; develops project plans, timetables and staff assignments.
• Customizes, tests, recommends and configures operating and network systems and software platforms; monitors, evaluates and resolves hardware/software configuration system performance problems; recommends third party software on other operating systems.

Desired Qualifications

• Expert-level experience managing enterprise Cisco contact centers and telephony applications.
• Expert-level implementation and support of complex Cisco IPT solutions with CUCM, Cisco Unity Connection, UCCE, and Voice Gateways using SIP protocol.
• Extensive knowledge and troubleshooting ability of the SIP Protocol. Applicants should be confident in their ability to design and configure technologies using the SIP Protocol, as well as troubleshoot SIP logs regardless of the application.
• Integration experience for third-party call recording applications.
• Strong knowledge and experience managing and maintaining Windows Servers.
• Call Center and Contact Center knowledge and experience.

Working Conditions

• The U.S. Senate network cannot be taken offline for maintenance during the workday, or while the Senate is in session. As such, maintenance windows may only occur at night, on weekends, and occasionally on holidays. Employees who perform systems upgrades, maintenance, wiring, backups, support our alternate data centers will have schedules that include working nights, weekends, and holidays. 
• This position directly supports essential services of the U.S. Senate. As such, this position requires the employee be available and prepared to work during a lapse, in inclement weather, on holidays, weekends, and during late nights to ensure essential services to the Senate continue without interruption. In the context of government furloughs, this position is considered excepted. 
• Since this position requires onsite presence in support of the U.S. Senate when in session, this position requires the employee to be available and prepared to work during a lapse, in inclement weather, on holidays, and during late night, overnight, and weekend sessions. In the context of government furloughs, this position is considered excepted.

Security Clearance

• This position requires that the applicant obtain and maintain a Secret U.S. Government security clearance.
• Applicants must be U.S. citizens in order for the SAA to submit your application for a security clearance.

 CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

To be employed by a Senate employing office in a paid position in the continental United States an individual must:
1. Be a U.S. citizen;
2. Be lawfully admitted for permanent residence and seeking citizenship as outlined in 8 U.S.C. § 1324b(a)(3)(B);
3. Be (i) admitted as a refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157 or granted asylum under 8 U.S.C. § 1158 and (ii) have filed a declaration of intention to become a lawful permanent resident and then a citizen when eligible; or
4. Owe allegiance to the U.S. (i.e., qualify as a non-citizen U.S. national under federal law).

Employment is contingent on background / security investigation results.  

BENEFITS AT-A-GLANCE

The SAA provides a highly competitive benefits package for all SAA staff. Our benefits extend beyond health care coverage to help provide employees with student loan reimbursement, professional development, transportation subsidy, TSP/retirement savings, access to our Employee Assistance Program, and more! For more information regarding SAA’s benefits, please visit https://sen.gov/OPPW.

ACCOMMODATIONS

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, the SAA is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAA and need special assistance or an accommodation to complete the application process, please submit your request to [email protected] with “Accommodation” in the subject line.

VOLUNTARY SELF-IDENTIFICATION FOR VETERANS' PREFERENCE

If you are identifying as veterans' preference eligible under the VEOA, please use this link to complete your application for Veterans' Preference AFTER you apply for this position. The link will also be available on the "Thank You" page after you have submitted your job application.

Candidates only need to apply one time for veterans’ preference to be considered for all future veterans’ preference positions within the Senate Sergeant at Arms. 

• All supporting documents must ONLY be provided within the Veterans’ Preference Application and within the stated deadline of the job announcement.
• Late applications for veterans’ preference will not be considered.
• Documentation to obtain veterans’ preference will not be considered if attached to the job application.
• If you need to revise or resubmit your Application for Veterans' Preference/documents, please withdraw your previous Application for Veterans' Preference and resubmit. If you require assistance, please email [email protected].
• To view additional information regarding the VEOA, please click here.

An applicant who declines to self-identify as a disabled veteran and/or to provide information and documentation regarding his/her disabled veteran’s status will not be subjected to an adverse employment action, but the individual may be ruled ineligible for veterans’ preference.