Join Leidos’ mission-focused engineering team and deliver software that powers data analytics, computer vision, and AI capabilities for national security customers. At Leidos, we don’t just offer internships - we offer career acceleration. This is your chance to work alongside industry-leading experts in Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous systems, and multi-modal information retrieval.

Leidos is looking for a curious and enthusiastic Systems Engineer Intern to join our team in Arlington, VA supporting our national security customer. You’ll work side-by-side with system/software engineers and research/data scientists to help evolve a production platform that combines microservices, data search & analytics, and machine learning services. This is a great role if you enjoy translating real user needs into clear technical requirements, improving processes, and building the engineering documentation that turns ideas into delivered capability.

You’ll thrive in this role if you are

• Curious and adaptive—comfortable learning new domains and asking good questions
• Organized and self-directed, while still highly collaborative
• Confident communicating your needs and working as an active team member

Primary Responsibilities

• Partner with engineers and stakeholders to capture use cases and decompose requirements
• Research and evaluate technologies to improve performance, usability, reliability, and maintainability
• Support system design and architecture efforts for a platform that includes:
  • a user-facing interface for search and analytics
  • microservice-based components
  • multiple ML-enabled services
• Produce high-quality engineering artifacts such as SysML/UML diagrams and design notes
• Contribute to an iterative delivery environment by communicating progress, risks, and dependencies clearly

Basic Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s in Systems Engineering or related field
• Experience with SysML and/or UML
• Must be U.S. Citizen eligible to obtain and maintain a DoD Secret security clearance. Leidos will guide you through the clearance process.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to Agile / Lean-Agile practices
• Familiarity with the software development lifecycle and/or DevOps concepts
• Hands-on experience using Git
• Ability to obtain /maintain DoD Top Secret security clearance with polygraph.

Work location and schedule

• Arlington, VA. Hybrid: 4 days on-site, 1 day remote per week.
• 8–10 week internship, target start May/June 2026.

Why Leidos

• Learn from a diverse team of engineers, data scientists and other professionals building mission-critical systems.
• Mentorship, tech talks, and intern cohort events to accelerate your growth.
• Real impact: contribute to R&D and production systems supporting customers.

How to stand out

• Share a link to your GitHub/portfolio and briefly describe a project you’re proud of (what you built, technologies used, and your role).
• If team-based, clarify your individual contributions.

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:

February 26, 2026

Pay Range:

Pay Range $48,100.00 - $86,950.00

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.