DHS Systems SME
Location: McLean, VA
Company: Revolutional, LLC
Job Description Apply Now
Revolutional delivers advanced technology solutions and mission support to federal agencies across civilian, health, and national security environments. We apply modern capabilities, including AI/ML, cloud, cybersecurity, and IT modernization to solve complex challenges, enable faster and more secure operations, and drive measurable mission outcomes.
We are redefining how federal technology gets built and delivered by operating with a product mindset, prioritizing speed, ownership, and execution over bureaucracy.
Description
Title: DHS Systems SME
Location: Remote
Terms: Full-time
Salary: $120-$140k DOE
Clearance: Qualified candidates must be US citizens and able to obtain a minimum of a Public Trust clearance
Travel: 0-20%
Position Description
We are seeking a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Systems Subject Matter Expert (SME) to serve as an embedded domain expert and senior practitioner within a DHS/ICE program environment. This role requires the seasoned judgment of someone who has operated inside the ICE ecosystem long enough to know where the official documentation ends and operational reality begins. The right candidate brings that depth of experience to bear across system testing, quality assurance, business analysis, and modernization support without needing direction on what matters or why.
A core responsibility of this role is supporting the migration of legacy ICE systems and workflows into the Palantir platform. This person will not own migration decisions, but they are expected to operate with the independence and expertise to be the last line of analytical defense before those decisions are made, testing migrated functionality against real operational requirements, identifying what has been lost or broken in transition, characterizing risk with precision, and briefing findings to leadership in terms that drive informed action. Junior oversight is not available for this work; it requires someone who has done it before.
Responsibilities:
ICE Domain Expertise & Senior Advisory
- Operate as the authoritative operational reference on ICE systems, workflows, and mission processes — providing expert guidance that technical and program teams can rely on without independent verification.
- Independently identify discrepancies between documented ICE procedures and actual operational practice, assess the risk those gaps create, and communicate findings with enough precision that program leadership can act on them directly.
- Advise technical teams on how proposed system changes, configurations, and workflow redesigns will play out in operational reality — not just in theory — and push back credibly when technical decisions conflict with mission requirements.
- Represent operational context in stakeholder sessions, requirements reviews, and sprint ceremonies with the confidence and authority of a senior practitioner, not a subject matter reference.
- Maintain current awareness of changes across the ICE enterprise systems landscape and proactively surface relevant impacts to the program team before they become problems.
Legacy-to-Palantir Migration Support
- Independently test migrated workflows, data structures, and system behaviors within the Palantir environment — validating fidelity against operationally-vetted requirements, not just technical specifications or developer assumptions.
- Apply operational judgment to evaluate legacy ICE processes as they are carried into Palantir, distinguishing between functionality that must be preserved for mission or compliance reasons and legacy workarounds that modernization should retire.
- Produce migration test findings and gap analyses written for decision-makers — clear on operational impact, risk level, and remediation priority, not just defect taxonomy.
- Identify data integrity issues, workflow translation failures, and edge-case gaps in migrated functionality before they are certified or reach production.
- Proactively flag systemic migration risks — patterns across defects, recurring translation failures, or structural issues in how legacy processes have been interpreted — rather than reporting defects in isolation.
Functional Testing & Quality Assurance
- Independently design and execute functional test cases built from real ICE operational scenarios — determining what needs to be tested, at what depth, and why, without requiring direction on test strategy.
- Perform rigorous end-to-end testing across ICE-facing applications with particular focus on mission-critical workflows, data integrity, and operational edge cases that standard QA frameworks do not anticipate.
- Triage and characterize defects with the operational context and analytical depth that allows development teams and program leadership to immediately understand severity, mission impact, and remediation urgency.
- Manage JIRA and XRay for test planning, case management, execution, and defect tracking; maintain full traceability between requirements, test coverage, and outcomes.
- Execute testing within CI/CD environments; independently manage testing workload across multiple concurrent applications without sacrificing coverage quality or delivery timelines.
Business Analysis & Requirements
- Lead requirements elicitation with operational stakeholders — drawing on firsthand ICE system knowledge to ask the right questions, surface unstated assumptions, and produce requirements that reflect mission reality.
- Facilitate stakeholder sessions, working groups, and requirements reviews; independently drive competing perspectives toward actionable, documented consensus.
- Author user stories, acceptance criteria, and process documentation with the precision and completeness that eliminates back-and-forth with development — implementation-ready on delivery.
- Independently assess technical dependencies, integration risks, and schedule impacts and brief those findings to program leadership in business terms.
- Identify and escalate process improvement opportunities — particularly where legacy ICE workflows introduce risk or inefficiency that the modernization effort should address, not carry forward.
- Participate actively in Agile ceremonies including sprint planning, backlog refinement, standups, and retrospectives; contribute senior-level perspective to delivery planning and risk discussions.
Requirements
- 7–10+ years of experience working within or in direct operational support of DHS/ICE programs, systems, or mission areas. Broad federal IT experience does not satisfy this requirement.
- Deep, working knowledge of ICE enterprise systems and the operational workflows they support — including data flows between systems, where manual processes and workarounds exist, and where system behavior diverges from official documentation.
- Ability to engage as a peer with ICE operational personnel, interpret field-level requirements independently, and produce technical and programmatic documentation that requires minimal revision.
- Demonstrated familiarity with ICE core mission areas (ERO, HSI, or related functions) and the system dependencies, data sources, and process interdependencies that underpin them.
Desired
- Direct, hands-on experience with Palantir Foundry or Palantir Gotham in a testing, validation, or migration support capacity — strongly preferred, not merely a plus.
- Prior significant involvement in a legacy system migration or digital modernization effort within a law enforcement, DHS, or national security environment.
- Specific familiarity with ICE legacy systems such as TECS, ENFORCE, EAGLE, or related platforms.
- Background as a former ICE officer, agent, or long-tenure operational contractor with direct mission experience.
- Experience applying process improvement methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma, or equivalent) to government or law enforcement operational workflows.
- Experience independently leading stakeholder working groups, technical exchanges, or cross-functional delivery coordination.
#DICE #LI #CJ
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here at Revolutional we are pleased to have been repeatedly recognized for our outstanding work culture, the innovative work we do, and the employees on our team who make a difference each day. Some of these recognitions include:
- Recognized as a Top 20 "Best Place to Work in Virginia"
- Recipient of Department of Labor's HireVets Gold Medallion
- Great Place to Work Certification for five years running
- A Virginia Chamber of Commerce Fantastic 50 company
- A Northern Virginia Technology Council Tech 100 company
- Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies for eleven years
- Two-time SBA SBIR Tibbett's Award winner
- Virginia Values Veterans (V3) Certification
We recognize that every bit of our success is the result of our teams of hard-working, motivated, and innovative professionals who are proud to call themselves part of the Revolutional family! In addition to competitive compensation, a family-focused culture, and a dynamic, productive work environment, we offer all full-time employees a variety of benefits including, but not limited to
- Traditional and HSA- eligible medical insurance plans
- 100% employer-paid dental and vision insurance options
- 100% employer-sponsored STD, LTD, and life insurance
- 5% 401(k) company matching
- Flexible-schedules and teleworking options
- Paid holidays and PTO Accrual Plans
- Paid Parental Leave
- Professional development and career growth opportunities
- Team and company-wide events, recognition, and appreciation-- and so much more!
Check out our to find out a little more about who we are and if we are the right next step for your career!
Revolutional is an Equal Opportunity Employer providing equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or genetics. Revolutional does and will take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment individuals with disabilities and protected veterans. To perform the above job successfully, an individual must possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities listed; meet the education and work experience required; and must be able to perform each essential duty and responsibility satisfactorily. Other duties in addition to those listed may be assigned as necessary to meet business needs. Reasonable accommodation will be made to enable an applicant with a disability to successfully apply for and/or perform the essential duties of the job. If you are in need of an accommodation, please contact .