Leidos is seeking an experienced Program Manager (PM) to lead and grow the DTRA Experimentation Lab (DEL) Program in Fort Belvoir, VA. Serving as key personnel, the PM will provide overall program leadership and act as the primary integrator between the Leidos team and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Research and Development (RD) Directorate. The PM will ensure customer projects, service desk requests, and operational priorities are effectively tracked, coordinated, and completed on schedule while maintaining a high standard of customer service and mission support. This role requires the ability to translate evolving mission needs into executable technical and operational outcomes, communicate effectively with both technical personnel and senior nontechnical stakeholders, and coordinate across multiple DTRA customers, including the RD Directorate, DTRA J6, facilities stakeholders, and DTRA cybersecurity offices.

The PM will lead the program's technical approach, including day-to-day operations, infrastructure sustainment, cybersecurity coordination, and proactive modernization initiatives. Key focus areas include the adoption of artificial intelligence-enabled capabilities, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), engineering-task automation, and other improvements that enhance reliability, efficiency, security, and mission effectiveness. The PM will work closely with Leidos finance, contracts, and technical leadership to maintain appropriate staffing levels and execute within the established contract budget, as well as interacting with Leidos personnel for technical innovation, meeting the program's Performance Work Statement (PWS). Responsibilities include budget planning for appropriate staffing needs and oversight for software licenses, hardware, infrastructure, and anticipated travel requirements, as applicable.

The successful candidate will lead with credibility, accountability, sound technical judgment, and empathy. The PM will empower Leidos and partner personnel, enable government customers (DTRA and other performers), identify and manage program risks, and drive measurable outcomes while upholding trust, integrity, and mission focus. The role requires a steady and decisive leader who can provide clear recommendations, articulate the rationale behind financial, technical and security-related decisions, and maintain disciplined execution in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment.

Salary Range: $125K to $165K

Program Summary

DTRA’s mission is to enable the Department of Defense (DoD), the Interagency, and International Partners to counter and deter Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Improvised Threat Networks. The DEL’s mission is to serve as DTRA’s focal point for information technology (IT) integration, innovation, and collaboration, fostering customers’ mission, supporting cross-RD advanced R&D initiatives, maintaining awareness of and competence in trending technologies, and providing opportunities to leverage existing RD assets in support of operational and technical requirements.

Primary Responsibilities & Measures of Success

• Provide technically credible program leadership across DEL operations, architecture, cybersecurity, and modernization by identifying real risks, challenging incorrect assumptions, and protecting the networks from avoidable failures.

Measure of Success: Modernization and operational milestones are achieved on schedule and within contract and budget constraints, with no unplanned outages, security regressions, and with identified technical, contractual, and financial risks mitigated before they impact network or program performance.

• Translate complex technical and operational realities into clear, actionable guidance for senior government and stakeholders to enable informed decision-making.

Measure of Success: Senior government and stakeholder decisions are made with clear understanding of technical risks, tradeoffs, and impacts, resulting in timely approvals, reduced rework or reversals, and demonstrably increased trust and engagement from DISA J6 leadership.

• Identify, manage, and mitigate program risks (technical, operational, financial, contractual, and organizational) before they impact performance, cost, or credibility.

Measure of Success: Program risks across technical, operational, financial, contractual, and organizational domains are identified and mitigated early, resulting in stable execution with no avoidable cost growth, schedule slips, mission impacts, or loss of stakeholder confidence.

• Elevate cybersecurity posture, ATO continuity, and risk governance by ensuring all modernization, migration, and engineering activities are planned and executed within RMF requirements, ATO constraints, and approved cyber risk tolerances, in close partnership with cyber and compliance leadership.

Measure of Success: The DEL team maintains continuous ATO authorization and cyber credibility throughout modernization and migration efforts, with POA&Ms and CORA findings proactively managed, no unplanned compliance-driven execution delays, and no mission impact resulting from unmanaged cyber or accreditation risk.

• Build and sustain trusted relationships across Leidos, subcontractors, and government partners through integrity, consistency, accountability, and results.
• Measure of Success: Leidos is viewed by government and industry partners as a reliable, mission-focused leader, evidenced by sustained customer confidence, effective collaboration across primes and subcontractors, and repeat engagement on complex or high-trust initiatives beyond baseline contract requirements.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a technically credible, emotionally intelligent, ethically grounded PM who is calm under pressure, comfortable operating in ambiguity, and relentless about clarity and integrity. They lead through influence in environments with shared accountability and are comfortable making hard recommendations even when unpopular. They lead without ego, disagree without being disagreeable, and are willing to stand firm in support of the mission and the team.

Basic Qualifications

• BA/BS or equivalent experience and 5+ years of prior relevant experience or master’s with 3+ years or prior relevant experience with autonomously guiding complex projects and operations across multiple related IT disciplines throughout the project lifecycle. Specific experience, education and training may be considered in lieu of degree.
• 2+ years of experience supervising or leading teams or projects.
• Active DoW Secret level security clearance with ability to get Top Secret and be eligible for SCI at time of consideration.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience serving as the “single accountable voice” in contested environments.
• Experience estimating technical and operations costs.
• Experience identifying and assessing business impacts from proposed changes to a technical solution or enterprise operation.
• Experience operating at Senior levels with accountability for enterprise outcomes.
• Experience integrating subcontractor partners effectively into the mission.
• Experience and ability to successfully negotiate and influence others to understand and accept new concepts, practices, and approaches.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.